#bertha de cornouaille

[ardenrosegarden]

In England, English and Norman barons kill each other to seize the throne and in France, the Carolingian unity having been shattered, the little Capetian king managed his meager possessions under the vigilant and hostile eye of the great feudal lords who watched over over their strongholds and control his every move. Brittany, if it wished, could finally spread its wings. Conan III is careful not to do this and is content to govern peacefully, only too happy that the English and French ropes which hold him by the neck are suddenly so weak. A good duke, good husband, good Breton, he has everything going his way, but was unfortunately a bad father; on his deathbed he disowns Hoël, his son, and chooses as his heir Conan IV, a little boy of 9 years old, the son of his daughter Bertha.

Gilles Martin-Chauffier, Le Roman de la Bretagne

#twelfth century #hoël de cornouaille #bertha de cornouaille #ft konan iii's hand and constance of mayenne i guess 😂 #so. I bought the bande dessinée ''Breizh'' bc I'm unfortunately Very Easy and they used this bit from Martin-Chauffier #I agree with historians like Keats-Rohan et al that believe Hoël was somewhat In On It and his spats with Bertha and her husband were #almost always more small-scale (eg how independent Nantes should be relative to the ducal crown etc etc) #but I do sometimes wonder and the BD bit got it rotating again... #given Hoël was iirc the eldest of Konan III's kids and also a dude man in the early 1100's if he was ever tempted by the Cain Instinct... #there's something about Bertha and Hoël largely being allies but also siblings who quarrel on the political stage... #(also an example of the kind of nationalistic writing flourishes I have to wade through every day I'm fighting for my life out here 😭) #(also the idyllic verbiage when Bertha was living in England during said war where the English were killing each other. like...) #shakespeareomnibus

[skeleton-richard]

@ardenrosegarden​ the sheer Bertha de Cornouaille energy Cécile radiates

(google images says it’s from her site but I don’t see it there, anyway here’s her site: http://www.cecile-corbel.com/en/home.html)

#bertha de cornouaille #cécile corbel

[ardenrosegarden]

(minimally) cleaned up Berthas from my sketchbook

but they were fun :')

#twelfth century #bertha de cornouaille #shakespeareomnibus

[ardenrosegarden]

how old Bertha of Cornouaille was when she died? for some reason information on different sites range from 1 to 41 so I'm very confused 😅

Farrer and Clay place her death between 1162 (where she was witnessing a charter for Conan IV in Guingamp) and 1167 when Eudo de Porhoët remarried. The oldest estimate for her birthdate is Wikipedia's c. 1114 and the youngest I've seen is Laurence Moal's c. 1119, so she would have been anywhere from ~43-53 years old by that time going off that?

I apologize for still giving you a large range, but I hope that's a little more tangible than what you were working with before 😅

#anyway I hope that still helps you somewhat anon <3 #ask #anonymous #bertha de cornouaille #twelfth century

[ardenrosegarden]

What was Bertha de Cornouaille's second marriage like? From what I can tell her first marriage doesn't seem to have been very good (although she outlived him, slay!) but im a bit confused about her second

Lmao yeah, slay indeed, get that Honour of Richmond 💪💯 At the end of the day I have to respect the grind even if it sounds like her time in England was a bit rough :')

As for Bertha's second marriage, that also seems to be quite murky, she was rarely (from what I can tell) acting very independently (the only known charter we have of hers is from her time in England), so it's hard to get a clear picture from the little information we have how she may have felt about Eudon.

On one hand, it could have been a pretty politically advantageous marriage- Porhoët was pretty expansive, which is kind of important if you're concerned about a potential power vacuum destabilizing your family. Unfortunately that call kind of came from inside the house.

I've seen some writers claim that when Eudon and Conan IV fell out, she took Eudon's side and others claim the opposite, so it's hard to get an idea of where she would have been in all of this. I tend to lean more to the latter opinion, given the commentary from Judith Everard and Sara McDougall which suggest that Conan III's decision to make Bertha his heir instead of her brother was a cooperative family effort to increase their family's influence, which to me colors how she may have seen Eudon's grab for power.

On the other hand, Eudon was claiming Brittany in the name of the daughter he had with Bertha (Alix), so I can also understand on there being some messiness for Bertha on a personal level if she felt she had to choose between her daughter and son's livelihood.

#twelfth century #bertha de cornouaille #I wish I could be more help anon :( #went through my giant book of duchesses and my other on Cornouaille in the 12th c. and neither had much to say about her...😔 #so forgive me I did my best to give you as concrete an answer as I can </3 #In terms of speculation I see both marriages as pretty strained but I try to keep that separate from discussing hard facts #anyway I hope this was somewhat helpful! thank you for the question I do love Bertha :') #ask #anonymous

[ardenrosegarden]

#matilda fitzroy i am so sorry but. your daughter says fuck. ma'am please stop sobbing. #Constance de Mayenne #hoël de cornouaille #bertha de cornouaille #shakespeareomnibus #twelfth century #*ermengarde d'anjou voice* rejoice: stew be upon ye

[ardenrosegarden]

The exact date of Conan IV’s donation isn’t known. The duke died in 1171, the presence of Bishop Geoffrey, who ascended the episcopate in 1167, makes it possible to propose that the act studied was drawn up in the years 1167-1171. These were difficult years for Conan IV. Since 1166, the year when the promise of marriage of his daughter, Constance, to the heir of Henry Il Plantegenet was sealed, he had, in a way, abdicated in favor of the King of England. He had nevertheless reserved the county of Guingamp for himself. But it is significant that he intended to continue to exercise his authority over the whole of the duchy, since this act was orchestrated in Cornouaille, a long way from the northern county, the prerogative of his house. It is true that it was a hereditary region, based on the ducal lineage from which his mother, Bertha, descended. However, it should be emphasized that, in this act, Conan still called himself dux Britanniae and comes Richemondiae. How do we understand this abdication made before the Plantegenet, since, until his death, the Breton wanted to take pride in, it seems, the title which gave him political primacy over the Duchy of Brittany? Also, behind the spiritual concern of a prince wishing to attach his name to the birth of a monastic establishment, should we not also glimpse the desire for a policy that saw, while his life was ending, Breton power soon in the hands of a foreigner? The goods donated by Conan were located near the south coast of Cornouaille, about five kilometers from the sea and about fifteen kilometers from Quimperlé. The deed uses the term foresta to describe the conceded area. More than the description of the plant cover (which is also probably intended to cover the sense of the word by the writer of the act), we must see in the abandoned domain the trace of the foresta known in the High Middle Ages, territory directly under control of the holder of public power. Count Alain Canhiart had granted the monks one of his residences; his wife, Judith, had ceded, a little later, the portus of Doelan and various domains around Clohars. It was a region where the house of Cornouaille was largely possessed, not in assets of hereditary origin, but in territories under the tax department and therefore its comital honor. Conan acted in a region controlled by his family, on property that came under his legitimate power, as the heir, as territorial prince of Brittany. Alain Canhiart's heir could no longer find the political dimension that was to be his except in this region which had probably remained faithful to him. Langonnet, born under the principate of his grandfather, Conan III, was a friendly abbey; what role did they want to give it by entrusting it with the creation of a daughter abbey? Sainte-Croix de Quimperlé had been a frontier abbey; Carnoët benefited from an identical geographical situation on the borders of Vannetais, then in the hands of Eudes de Porhoët, the second husband of Conan's mother, Berthe. The chosen place for the new Cistercian establishment, entrusted to a friend who was perhaps Maurice, just a coincidence or a symbol designed to mark the presence of a Breton Duke in this region?

-Joëlle Quaghebeur, La Cornouaille du IXe au XIIe siècle: Mémoire, pouvoirs, noblesse

#Strickland implies and Everard more explicitly claims that Conan IV's death was viewed as a relief for the royal family #mostly due to the fact that his status was kind of a weird one after 1166- he was technically not duke anymore #but he was still Earl of Richmond and kept the County of Guingamp #and evidently if he was still referring to himself as ''dux Britannie'' in 1167...that's a very weird grey area to occupy #twelfth century #konan iv #abbot maurice

[ardenrosegarden]

His dearest child needed a protector; [Conan III] chooses Alain de Penthièvre, Count of Richmond, nicknamed Alain le Noir. The man was a renowned warrior and of high birth, since the Penthièvres formed a cadet branch of the Dukes of Brittany. In the previous century, they had fought in England with William the Conqueror and became, after the victory, lords of a vast territory taken from the Saxons. This is where Alain le Noir lived before his marriage, in his formidable castle of Richmond.

Choosing a Breton prince for his daughter Berthe was, on the part of Conan le Gros, a wise precaution, because he was certainly already thinking of making her his heiress and it seemed more than probable that the barons of Brittany would not accept her for Duchess if, because of her, a foreign prince would wear the cloak of ermine.

-Jacques Choffel, La Bretagne Sous l’Orage Plantagenêt

#historyedit #from what I can tell the marriage wasn't a happy one but it seems like Berthe came out with the longer end of the stick between the two #not to mention outlived him #good for her #my edit #twelfth century #bertha de cornouaille #conan iii #alan le noir #I wish I could include more but Jacques has some takes I don't agree with in the preceding sentences

[ardenrosegarden]

#uwu berthe de bretagne duchesse de bretagne et comtesse de richemont my beloved #bertha de cornouaille #shakespeareomnibus #twelfth century

[ardenrosegarden]

Such an ambitious policy required sacrifices. Hoël was obliged to sacrifice his claim to the ducal title in favour of his sister. He is not known to have married, and his only known child became a nun at Saint-Sulpice-la-Forêt. In view of the significance of the name Hoël outlined above, and the Namur precedent, it may be that Conan intended to compensate his son with the county of Nantes for his life. Indeed, the subsequent conflict between Hoël and Bertha may have been limited to a dispute about the degree of Hoël's independence as count of Nantes.

Similarly, for Alan to succeed to the lordship of Penthièvre meant that one or both of Alan's brothers would have to designate him as their heir. In the 1120s, Stephen of Penthièvre had divided his lands between his three sons; the eldest, Geoffrey Boterel II, received the eastern portion (henceforth known as Penthiévre or Lamballe), the youngest, Henry, received the western portion (Tréguier or Guingamp), and Alan, the middle son, received the English lands, the honour of Richmond. On this basis, Alan had no hereditary right to any of the Penthièvre lands in Brittany. Geoffrey Boterel evidently was not compliant, as is indicated by his active support for the Empress Matilda in the English civil war, while Alan fought on the side of King Stephen. The youngest brother, Henry, on the other hand, seems to have been persuaded to sacrifice his independent and potentially hereditary possession of Tréguier in favour of Alan, and to remain unmarried. In 1145, both Alan and Henry were at Conan III's court at Quimper, when Alan confirmed their father's grants to a priory in Guingamp, indicating Alan's lordship of Tréguier.

Judith Everard, Brittany and the Angevins: Province and Empire, 1158-1203

#historyedit #twelfth century #bertha de cornouaille #konan iii #(not sure how well Hoël's name as theory holds up as it also could be a callback to Hoël II but ehh) #but I do appreciate a more critical look at the 1148 succession that's not weird about matilda fitzroy being an illegitimate daughter #my edit

[ardenrosegarden]

giving her attention out of pure spite

#also wanted to play around with a more toony style #I haven't been able to draw in so long and boy does it show lmao #shading layers are my only saving grace #bertha de cornouaille #shakespeareomnibus

[ardenrosegarden]

it finally occurred to me that that Six Fanarts meme can fit uhh six people

#hawiz de rennes #bertha de cornouaille #constance of brittany #alix #jeanne de penthièvre #anne of brittany #shakespeareomnibus

[ardenrosegarden]

heiress of the blood moon

#konan iii's favorite kid (sorry hoël) #bertha de cornouaille #sketch #her hair's too poofy just bc I originally wanted to do something else but changed my mind #i have <5 brain cells and use exactly 0 of them

[ardenrosegarden]

bad ending .png

#i was looking at alignment charts the other day #honestly i'm hookéd #hawiz de rennes #bertha de cornouaille #constance of brittany #shakespeareomnibus

[ardenrosegarden]

sometimes your assigned family unit is just you, your badass grandma, your disaster brother, your younger sister who moved out, and your machiavellian dad who wants to marry you off to increase brittany’s prospects

#bertha de cornouaille #twelfth century

[ardenrosegarden]

heck yeah complicated medieval family relationships

#hoël de cornouaille #bertha de cornouaille #shakespeareomnibus #tiwss