Armorique

The word Armorique is the name given in the Antiquité to a broad coastal region located today in Metropolitan France and extending from Pornic close to Nantes at Dieppe at north to the Pays to Caux. It thus recovers the current area Brittany, the North-West of the area Pays of the Loire and the totality of the Norman littoral . It was populated Celtic tribes gathered within a Armorican Confédération.

Strabon, Greek geographer, and Posidonios describes the Armorican ones ( Armoricani ) as finding their origin in the group of the Gallic Belgians (Belgae) whose Jules César said them: “ Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae ” (“ Of all, the Belgian are most valorous ”).

Origin of the name

This maritime part of the Gaulle with his back-country was named then in continental Celtique or Gaulois Aremorica the country which faces the sea , country of the Aremorici those which live in front of the sea, close to the sea : Armorica is the Latinization of this term.

One can break up the word as follows:

“ ari ” comes from the Indo-European “ pri ” in front of, auprès (old Irish: “ air, rear ”, in front of, Welsh “ er ” = for),
“ mori ” = sea (Irish “ to muir ”, Génitif “ will mara ” topic in “I”; Welsh and Breton: “ mor ”).

Aremorici: antemorini quia are handle, more pond, morici marini. |Glossary of Endlicher, librarian of the Palatine Library, Vienna, Austria, 1836

Aremorici, antemarini quia are handle; cf ARM. MOD. " arvor. | Joseph Loth, Chrestomathie Breton, Armorican, Welsh, Cornique . Paris, Emile Bubble Publisher-bookseller, 1890

Aremorici, (late: armorici) " antemarini" , VAr. aremurici (Glossary of Vienna); irl. " air, Gall. bret. " rear " sur". | Georges Dottin, the Gallic Language, grammar, text and glossary . Paris, C.Klincksieck, 1920

In Gallic " Aremorica" , in the past " Paremorica " , " (country) in front of the sea " , name of the peninsula which will become Brittany. Were known as also Armoricains at the time of César, the bordering people of the Manche. | Paul-Marie Duval, Celtic , Gallimard, Paris, 1977

First Celtic populations

At the time Gallic, Armorique was a vast confederation of Gallic people extending on the 4 departments from the area current Brittany (Morbihan, Ille-et-Vilaine, Finistere and Coast-with Armor), the north-western part of the area Pays of the Loire (Loire-Atlantique, Anjou, the Sarthe, Mayenne) and the near total of the Normandy (Manche, Calvados, the Eure, Seine-Maritime) and their territories bordering.

Borders of this " confederation armoricaine" are not defined so precisely. Other authors propose different assumptions:

for some, Armorique went from the mouth of the the Gironde to the mouth of the the Seine, because at the time of the “tract Armoricanus and Nervicanus” (380), the Roman province of Armorique extended to the estuary from the Gironde.
for others it was reduced to the historical Brittany more the departments of the English Channel (peninsula of the Cotentin) and of the Apple-brandy until the the Seine with can be a short period of the Orne.

These last configurations can be retained with difficulty because it is known on the one hand that the Pictons (of the Poitou) and the Santons (of the Saintonge), sworn enemies of the Vénètes, were never named Armoricains, and on the other hand that the Calètes (Celtique Caleti , of the Pays of Caux, Dieppe, Fécamp) were confirmed like Armoricains.

Armorique was inhabited in the west by the Osismes (Celtic Osismii ), that the Greek navigator Pythéas knows under the name of Ostimioi . Their name means “highest” or “those of the end of the world”. In the south there were the Vénètes (Celtique Veneti ) which impressed César by their power:

By their considerable navy, their nautical superiority good recognized and their commercial relations with the Island of Brittany, Vénètes had become very powerful people, whose authority extended to far on all the littoral from Gaulle and insular Brittany. They had a small number of ports located on this sea open and stormy with long distances from/to each other and made tributary almost all the navigators obliged to pass in their water. |César, War of Gaules , III, 8

Vénètes, influential Quoted maritime of tradesmen and sailors, like Venice or Saint-Malo, had a strong organization and was equipped with a Sénat. They had in particular a important Flotte which supported the richness of Armorique. They traded of the British Isles until in Italy of which they diffused the products: the pearls (Suétone, César , 47), the Situle S, bronze vases, cuts, of the Onéchoé S, the statuettes of gods, the jewels and the ornaments of luxury, the weapons. These goods which accompanied oil and wine the Amphore S were charged with Ostie, Pouzzoles or Ansedonia (Orbetello) and were then conveyed for ships towards Narbonne from where they gained the Atlantique by overland route while passing by the Seuil of Lauragais, Toulouse and finally Bordeaux. Another shopping street existed which followed the valley of the the Rhone then that of the the Loire.

At the beginning of Bordeaux and Nantes the ships skirted the coasts by making Cabotage towards Vannes and all the other ports to feed the large peninsula until reaching the area inhabitant of Saint Malo with Alet. Of this port the goods were convoyed towards the southern parts of the insular Brittany and in particular towards the Emporion of Hengistbury Head not far from Bournemouth in the current Dorset, where one found quantity of shards of Amphores to Roman Vin and of ceramics osisms and coriosolites and much of currencies of the large Armorican peninsula, for the majority coriosolites.

Via Vénètes, the Armorican peninsula sold with the Romains and the Italian the tin and the Cuivre of the insular Brittany, of the Ambre, the slaves, the gun dogs, lead (of Poullaouen), of salt, the skins, of gold, inter alia productions; the Armorican Salting S and pork-butcheries already well-known and were appreciated with Rome.

Vénètes resided in the current Morbihan and gave their name to the town of Vannes; they bear the same name curiously as the others Vénètes which founded another powerful commercial and maritime city: Venice.

During the time preceding the Roman conquest, Vénètes and the Lexoviens were controlled by a Senate, expression political of a middle-class of Trading S and industrialists which had taken the step on the former declining Celtic warlike caste. The people of the Gaulle were directed before by a Noblesse of the antiquated type with the various layers of its hierarchy. This nobility had been constituted throughout “heroic” times at the time of various wars or remote forwardings. The Gallic nobility, of feudal type, had under its vassal orders a crowd of and customer S whose fidelity was absolute. With the bottom of the social Pyramide was the Esclave S. These are the news Gallic commercial Bourgeoisie S which in various places of the Gaulle chose to collaborate with the Roman conqueror to preserve their businesses and their social status. These inclinations of treason, from “Collaboration” with the Roman occupant always did not occur very well for the new Celtic oligarchs since all the members of the senates of the Aulerques, the Lexoviens and the Éburovices were massacred until the last by the prince S and the noble their people. It would seem that the middle-class vénète did not follow the same step because it had understood that the Romains wanted to seize its markets and that it had very to lose with the Roman Conquête.

In the south of Vénètes the Namnètes were who remained in the mouth of the the Loire and gave their name to the town of Nantes. “Namnètes are called " Samnites " by Strabon and Ptolémée”. Namnètes were for a long time a simple tribe of Vénètes.

In the north and the east of current the Brittany was the Coriosolites, “ Coriosolitae ” in Latin. Their name comprises the root Corio, “army”. They resided in the east of current the Coast-with Armor and gave their name to the town of Corseul. Their capital was Arvii then Corseul ( Fanum Martis in Latin). The Redones which remained in current the Ille-et-Vilaine gave their names to the towns of Rennes and Redon.

Then in the south of the current Normandy were the Bajocasses, capital Augustodurum - Bayeux - and the Abrincates, “people of the river mouths”, named in Celtique Abrincatui or Ambivariti by Pline Old the) which gave their name to Avranches, that they are supposed to have built. To the IX E, they occupy this prosperous city of the time, which, following the invasion of the Romains, will change statute and will develop. With north of Normandy current it there had Unelles, in Cotentin, whose chief town was Cosedia (today Coutances) and the Lexoviens (into Celtic Lexovii) which were established in the south of the mouth of the the Seine, along the coast Norman. They gave their name to Lisieux become Roman city under its Gallic name of Noviomagus (the new market) and to the Lieuvin. Still today, one names the inhabitants of Lisieux, Lexoviens. One finds also the Esuvii (Bessin and Pays of Séez), Viducasses (Old man-the-Roman in the south-west of Caen), the Calètes, Pays of Caux, whose capital Lillebonne was formerly on the sea (Celtique Caleti = " durs" , " vaillants"), the Andecavi , (Anjou), the Aulerci Diablintes , on the Eastern Maine with Jublains in Mayenne, the Aulerci Cenomanni with Mans, the Aulerci Eburovices with Evreux, the Véliocasses with Rouen, the Arves in the the Sarthe and Nickel silver.

Roman epoch

The Roman conquest

The Romans seem to have benefitted from their long commercial relations with the Armorican ones to make economic Espionnage and to evaluate the richnesses of the territories of these people. The military Conquête seems to be mainly justified by mercantile reasons and the desire to seize the Gallic economic potential and its sales networks.

Rome did not want any more intermediaries between it and the last purchasers of its products. She did not want any more that Marseilles and the Narbonnaise continues to be used as relay towards Gaulle nor that the Armorican ones even resell its Italian products with the Breton islanders with the Belgian . Rome wanted all to control and all to manage on line. It was also necessary to find new grounds for plebeian the Romains and of new hunting grounds for the Italian bankers, the tradesmen, the “publicains” and other “business men” in search of new economic adventures. Future the Guerre of Gaules was before a a whole money business to seize the Gallic economy.

Because at that time (-57) the Gaulle had become a very rich country. Its commercial middle-class had accumulated cash enormously but had forgotten to develop its armed forces with the same level as its marketing activities. The world had changed since the time when the Gallic ones could invade Italy and plunder Rome without taking the care to occupy and to colonize the country. Rome had included/understood the lesson and had developed a State, an army and an economy able to protect it from the foreign aggressions. Parcelled out in many independent tribes and without effective military organization to protect his territory and his treasures, Gaulle was a prey trying and easy for the Roman appetites.

The military aristocracy, spinal column of the Celtic company, was declining.

The organisational weakness of the Gallic military tool was obvious since " Gaules" to be defended they same against the Germanic incursions were not even able and were to make call using the Roman army, even to regulate its internal quarrels. Gaulle, who had grown rich had also terribly softened himself and was in full decline. Without political and military tools effective and organized to protect it, the economic richness becomes the prey of the other powers.

The pretexts of intervention all were found when Gallic Peuples, combined Romains, the Séquanes and the Eduens, required of the Romans, in all unconsciousness of the danger, to agree to intervene to be opposed to the massive arrival of the people Helvètes which had just left their territory with the number of 160 000 with all their complete families following the vote of a law for their departure and after having set fire to and having destroyed all their goods in Helvétie in order to make this departure final. The Romains attacked the Helvètes and massacred them on the edges of the the Saone. The survivors turned over in Helvétie.

A little later, in 58 av. J.C, the Council of the Gaules, which gathered the big bosses of the Gallic Tribus asked César to intervene against Arioviste and its troops of Germains which had settled at the Séquanes and threatened to make in the same way at the Eduens. The Roman legions of César crushed the Germains Arioviste close to the the Rhine and spent the winter at the Séquanes Jusque-là, César behaved as a guard of the Gaulle against people which attacked it. All went well in Brave New World Celtic and friendly the Gaulois people of the Romans had to only be pleased with the effectiveness of such a powerful guard.

But into -57, César completely changed its attitude of defender of Gaulle against the attacks of the Germains: it suddenly launched a campaign against powerful Confédération of the Belgian people then against the Confederation of the Armorican people. It was done by it Gallic independence. The war of conquest of the Gaulle had started and was concluded its until the Asservissement of the very whole Gaulle. Pline the Old one in book VII of its Natural history (§ 91-99) evaluates with the 1.200.000 dead losses undergone by the Gallic people at only end of the conquest of Gaulle by Jules César. " I cannot place among his claims to fame, writing Pline the Old one, a so serious insult made with the humain" kind;. Plutarque, for its part, (in Pumped 67,10, and César 15,5) retains the figure of 1.000.000 from died and 1.000.000 of prisoners taken along to serve slaves. Jules César will benefit from the complicity of the Gallic Peuples pro-Romans which provides him resources:

the Pictons were hostile with the Vénètes as one can deduce it from their connection with the Proconsul Julius Caesar as of his first countryside and from the ships built or provided to the Romans by them, the Santons and others Gallic Peuples to facilitate the ruin of Vénètes to them. |César, War of Gaules , III, 11.

In Armorique, in 56 av. J. - C., the ships of Jules César provided by other Gallic people destroy the fleet vénète during the Bataille of Morbihan. Jules César reports that after the battle, the senate (command) of these people is cut the throat of and part of the people which had not been massacred is put in slavery, men, women, children, old men and sold like such; but this assertion must be taken with precaution. Indeed the territory of Vénètes is shown about normally inhabited during the Roman colonization which followed the conquest.

The Romains gave the name of Armorique to a great military command “Tractus Armoricanus” embracing a group considerable people which all appear to have been formerly members of the Armorican Confédération. Julius Caésar is expressed as follows:

… All the Armorican cities close to the ocean which give each other the name of Armorican ( Aremorici ) and with the number of which appear the Coriosolites, the Redones, the Ambibares, the Calètes, the Osismes, the Lémovices, the Vénètes, the Unelles, were to provide 6000 men. |César, War of Gaules , VII, page 35.

Romanisation of the area

As in all the areas of the Empire, the Romans employed in Armorique a policy of diffusion of their own culture within the local elites. The access to the citizenship Romans (example of T. Flavius Postuminus with Rennes) and the opening of possibilities of social rise were conditioned to the knowledge of Latin and the acceptance of the Roman habits. This contributed, by effect of oil task, with romaniser the area.

It is certain that Armorique of the High-Empire was, by its developed economy and its abundant population, perfectly integrated into the Roman Empire, but that this romanisation was limited as shows it the weak presence of the Latin epigraphy in the area. The study anthroponyme watch that at that time, the inhabitants of Armorique still bore purely Celtic names (such " Moricus" , " Smertulitanus" , " Rextugenos" , " Vertros" , etc).

The conquest thus did not modify basically the structures of the company and Latin did not penetrate elsewhere than in the cities, where the weak alien population concentrated. At the time of the evangelization of the area, the rusticani still were very strongly attached to their ancestral culture, in spite of an indisputable technical evolution related to the romanisation, and which they constituted most of the opposition to the Church. After the call of Breton legionaries (insular) by the Roman charged to defend the peninsula against the Germanic pirates, then after the immigration of Breton fleeing the attacks and the attempts at colonization of the Irishmen on the west of the island of Brittany, part of maritime Armorique was called Petite Brittany ( Britannia minor ) then simply Brittany.

Early middle ages

Breton emigration

Let us note that the Breton emigration coming from the British Isles take place also on all the “Norman” territory of the Aremorica , in particular the Cotentin and the Département of the Apple-brandy particularly the area around Caen, like confirmed it research of the professor Leon Fleuriot. The bonds of the territory which became later the Normandy with the island of Brittany always were of narrowest.

The Normandy was particularly rich in Breton saints: its coast facing that of the Great Britain, it would be incredible that the immigrants of 5th and 6th centuries avoided its shores systematically. Saint Patrick holy Irish of Breton origin (born in insular Brittany) is honoured in more than six parishes Normans. Holy Méen in three of them. The “exemption” of Holy-Mother-Church is an enclave of five parishes of the Diocese of Bayeux survival of an old monastery of Saint Mewen (modern Breton form Méen, cornic Mewan). Holy Anne, Holy Armel, Holy Aubin, Holy Méen, Saint Samson are honoured in many places with Normandy.

The density of the Breton toponyms in Normandy is also remarkable. Four Parish S Breton with the mouth of the the Seine, in addition to the monastery of Pentale-Saint-Samson (Pental=Talben, pen=tête, will tal=front) and in his vicinity remained like Breton entities until the Middle Ages and remained dependant on Évêché of the Breton Métropole of Dol as a Enclaves of Neustrie and of the edges of the Seine of the Evêché of Fraud-of-Brittany until 1790:

Saint-Maclou-with-the-Brière (Saint-Maclou = Saint-Malo),
Saint-Maclou-with-Folleville,
Saint-Maclou-of-Rouen (the Eure),
Saint-Thurien (Holy Turioult in 1376).

The Breton Metropolis of Fraud-of-Brittany was oldest and most important Abbaye - évêché Breton of type Celtique dating from the first times of the emigration.

Parcelling out and large extent of possessions and dependences of Diocese of Fraud, which is only the Breton diocese in this case (what proves its seniority and its importance) is explained by the dispersion of the first Breton colonies of the first times of the emigration of 5th and 6th centuries, of which it had the load and for which it was to be a great spiritual center, on the coasts of the Brittany and the current Normandy. Le Havre, with the mouth of the the Seine, was also a great center of Breton emigration, in second half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century, in particular by Steamer at the beginning of Morlaix.

If one counts also the participation of the Breton army of the duchy of Brittany under the command of the duke Alain IV of Brittany in the Bataille of Hastings and with the conquest of the England with the army Norman of William the Conqueror the October 14th 1066 that makes a whole of historical links and cultural common very old and very many between the two greatest parts of old the Aremorica which are the Brittany and the current Normandy.

Contemporary time

The word remained current in two directions, of which one is erroneous:

It gets busy in the expression “Armorican Massif” to indicate the mountainous solid mass which extends from Brittany to the hills of Normandy.
it is often given like synonym of “Brittany” by faulty assimilation with the Breton word “ rear mor ”, the sea , and the many place names “Armor” in Brittany. The Breton word “mor” comes from a close etymology, but does not recover the same definition.

The error “Armorique = Brittany” is frequent in the tourist guides, it would seem that it also appears in certain books reporting the history of Bretagne by convention we will name future Brittany: " Armorique" ”)--> which, so maintains confusion. It is on the other hand exact to say that Brittany recovers the old Armorican peninsula.

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