Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Genealogy of the dukes of Brittany, 1066–1203
- The principal political divisions of Brittany, c. 1066
- Ducal domains, c. 1066–1186
- Introduction
- 1 Ducal Brittany, 1066–1166
- 2 Henry II and Brittany
- 3 The government of Brittany under Henry II
- 4 Duke Geoffrey and Brittany, 1166–1186
- 5 Duke Geoffrey, Henry II and the Angevin empire
- 6 The end of Angevin Brittany, 1186–1203
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth series
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Genealogy of the dukes of Brittany, 1066–1203
- The principal political divisions of Brittany, c. 1066
- Ducal domains, c. 1066–1186
- Introduction
- 1 Ducal Brittany, 1066–1166
- 2 Henry II and Brittany
- 3 The government of Brittany under Henry II
- 4 Duke Geoffrey and Brittany, 1166–1186
- 5 Duke Geoffrey, Henry II and the Angevin empire
- 6 The end of Angevin Brittany, 1186–1203
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth series
Summary
By [the twelfth-century], Brittany was a central player in the feudal politics of the Anglo-Norman world, partaking of the cosmopolitan Latin culture of the day and economically transformed by the growth of towns. It was no longer a peripheral society … Distinctive still in cultural and linguistic terms, Brittany was nevertheless taking its place among the territorial principalities which clustered under the mantle of the Capetian monarchy.
Thus, in the epilogue of Province and Empire: Carolingian Brittany, Dr Julia Smith elegantly summarised Brittany in the hundred years or so preceding the advent of Angevin rule.
The aim of this study is to examine Brittany as a province of the Angevin empire from the perspective of the duchy as a participant in the contemporary culture and politics of western France and the Anglo-Norman realm. I hope to dispel the notion that twelfth-century Brittany was ‘Celtic’ and different, backward and atypical, and therefore not relevant to any discussion of Capetian France or of Anglo-Norman society. This notion has fostered the view that Angevin rule in Brittany, between 1158 and 1203, involved the autocratic imposition of Anglo-Norman or Angevin institutions which were alien to the Bretons. Since, on closer inspection, these institutions prove to be anything but alien to Brittany by the mid-twelfth century, a thorough reconsideration of Angevin rule in Brittany is called for.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Brittany and the AngevinsProvince and Empire 1158–1203, pp. ix - xPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000