View of the Crozon peninsula, in Brittany • ISTOCKPHOTO The migration, at the beginning of the High Middle Ages, of island Bretons (now Great Britain) to the Armorican peninsula, giving it the name of Brittany, is one of the essential moments in its history. Although this transmarine movement is indisputable, it remains somewhat enigmatic, because the reasons which determined it and the modalities of its unfolding have not yet found a convincing explanation, due to the poverty and ambiguity of the sources. The turn of the V e -VI e centuries It was considered, until recently, that the peninsula had experienced two migratory movements, the first – military – having taken place between the end of the III th century and that of the following century. The excavations of urban and rural sites seemed to attest to the hypothesis that these first immigrants were troops transferred by the Roman authorities in order to defend against the maritime raids of the Saxons and the Franks the western Gaul, then in full economic slump and largely depopulated. These excavations indeed showed a neglect of the built structures specific to the romanitas , which was explained by the settlement of settler-soldiers from the less Romanized regions of insular Brittany. The establishment in Gaul of the Breton troops of the usurper Maximus (383-388 AD), which dates back to the 9 th century the Historia Brittonum of the pseudo-Nennius, would have been an additional "proof" of it. However, after re-examining these data, it appeared to us that the general hypothesis was a historical fable. Written sources describing the arrival of island Bretons are few and very often post-events. The second migration, dating from the V e -VI e centuries and perhaps the 7th th century, is documented by several texts more or less contemporaneous with the supposed facts, by the Lives Breton saints and linguistic and toponymic data. We will thus retain the passage from De Excidio et conquestu Britanniae of Gildas (around 540), where he deplores the fate of the Bretons harmed by the Saxons:“Others emigrated to the other side of the ocean, with great sadness; under the swollen sails, they sang not sailor refrains but this psalm:“You have delivered us like lambs to the butchers, and you have scattered us among the nations””; the mention, in Sidoine Apollinaire and Jordanes, of the presence around 460, in the Loire Valley, of an army of 12,000 Bretons commanded by their king Riothamus; finally, the assertion of Procopius of Caesarea (circa 545-550), according to which Bretons migrated every year to the "lands of the Franks" due to strong demographic pressure. The Many Lives of the Breton saints are, with one possible exception, rather late (IX e -XI e centuries), but they sometimes reuse older documents. Their writing corresponds to particular phases of Breton history, such as the Carolingian conquest of the 9th th century or the ecclesiastical renewal of the XI th century. And even if we discard the marvelous facts they relate, we cannot consider them as historical documents stricto sensu . Thus, the Welsh aristocratic origin of the "greatest" saints and their youth spent in the V th or VI e century, at the monastery of Saint Iltud in Llantwit Major, in Wales, if they are not totally improbable, they should be considered with reserve. Sometimes attributed to a "divine vision" prompting them to go overseas to preach, their stay in the Armorican peninsula shows them founding monasteries and spreading the divine word. On both sides of the English Channel Linguistic and toponymic data, although they can hardly be dated within the very early Middle Ages, provide less uncertain answers. Breton is a Brittonic language, coming from insular Brittany, the toponymy showing similar constructions in loc- and in lan- (thus Llangollen in Wales and Langolen in Finistère) on both sides of the Channel. If they are perhaps not contemporary with the movements of the V e -VII e centuries, they nevertheless testify to close and repeated contacts between the two regions. Around the year 1000, Breton was spoken in the current departments of Côtes-d'Armor, Finistère and Morbihan, in the west of Ille-et-Vilaine and in the country of Guérande. Contrary to a long accepted hypothesis, the populations coming from the west of present-day Great Britain were not forced to flee the exactions committed by the Saxons. What do these elements of a value, it is true, very unequal reveal? It is widely believed that these migrants originated from western insular Brittany, the counties of Cornwall and Devon, and, to a lesser degree, Wales, as well as possibly Dorset. Closely linked to its very nature, the reasons for this movement remain uncertain. The theory according to which the Bretons would have been forced to flee the exactions of the Saxons must be discarded:the latter, defeated at the battle of Badon (490?), resumed their push towards the west only at the end of the VI e century. The archeology of these regions also shows a continuity of settlement in the V th and VI e centuries – the round de Trethurgy (Cornwall) is a good example of this – even real prosperity as evidenced by the royal site of Tintagel (Cornwall), and not the decline or collapse that one would expect. If we thus admit that this movement was not constrained, what were its vectors? Mass migration, as traditionally conceived, involves the passage of tens of thousands of Bretons, something which was not impossible, it is true, the Western Channel not being an impassable obstacle in good weather and these passages repeating itself for nearly two centuries. In this case, the number of migrants (about 20,000) was probably equivalent to that of the Germans (Angles, Saxons, etc.) who, at about the same time, migrated to the island of Brittany, no doubt in small groups and at irregular intervals. Archeology shows that the latter were, for the most part, peasants who first settled in the southeast. What about the Bretons who went to Gaul? To try to get to the roots of this phenomenon, we must, in turn, cross the English Channel. Archaeologically invisible migrants The indigenous communities of the Armorican peninsula had experienced and were still experiencing substantial changes. From the end of the III th century, many urban monuments had been abandoned, such as the thermal baths and the decorated rooms of the villae , a phenomenon reflecting a change in ways of life and not an abandonment of these sites. If the open capitals of the Osismes (Carhaix) and the Coriosolites (Corseul) seem to have been almost abandoned from the end of the IV e century, this was not the case for the walled capitals of the east and south of the peninsula (Rennes, Vannes, Nantes). In fact, many villae continued to be inhabited in the V e century, if not even later, and there is no evidence that the countryside became deserts at the end of the Roman era, which would have motivated the arrival of migrants and facilitated their settlement. The absence of coins – with very few exceptions – and native ceramics certainly does not facilitate the task of researchers, but it must be admitted that Breton migrants are still archaeologically invisible. Moreover, while they are credited with the creation of "primitive parishes" with the name in Plou- , this type of formation, specific to the Breton part of the peninsula, is almost absent from the regions from which the Bretons originate, place names in Loc- and Lan- probably a later phenomenon. Finally, let us note the discovery, in the peninsula, of ornamental objects belonging to the "Quoit Brooch Style" of the second half of the 5th th century and whose epicenter is located in the south-east of insular Brittany. Although some of these pieces may have come from northern Gaul and there is no necessary link between artifacts and ethnicity, their presence in late 5th th century is not without raising questions that remain unanswered to this day. A new power elite In the first part of the V e century, the political environment of the Armoricans changed profoundly. The secessions of 409 and 435 testify as much to their attitude towards Rome as to a weakening of the central power, accompanied by the emergence of small Gallo-Roman "lords". A century later, the mention, by Grégoire de Tours, of Breton “counts” shows that in three generations the power had, at least in what is visible to us, passed into the hands of immigrants. This suggests that, among the latter and alongside men of the Church on a mission of evangelization, there were members of the upper classes of the island peoples and/or that, from these new communities, an elite emerged who, perhaps through marriages concluded with the natives, gradually seized power. This, just as much as the establishment of Bretons in all of the areas concerned in the peninsular territory, explains the extinction of local dialects and their replacement by Breton, facilitated, it is true, by the proximity of Gaulish and South West Brittonic dialects. A similar phenomenon can be observed in insular Brittany, where the Germanic languages of the migrants replaced the Celtic or Latin-Celtic dialects of the natives, even though these migrants were a very small minority (probably 2%) and the archaeological data exclude any replacement of a population following a genocide. A “linguistic conversion” would then intervene here:the natives, considering themselves socially or culturally inferior, gradually adopt the language of the new arrivals through a classic phenomenon of acculturation. Many uncertainties remain on the installation of the Bretons in the Armorican peninsula. The texts having been plowed in all directions, only an enterprise freed from the weight of worn-out clichés and associating medievalists, specialists in Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages, sociolinguists and geneticists will perhaps make it possible to pierce this relative obscurity. Provided that the partitions that separate them are knocked down. Find out more Brittany of Arthur. Bretons and Saxons of the Dark Ages, P. Galliou, Lemme Edit, 2011.Guide to Roman Armorica, P. Galliou, Coop Breizh, 2015. Timeline Around 500,000 BC. Implantation of the first Palaeolithic habitat in the cave of Menez Dregan, in Plouhinec (Finistère).Around 4700-4500 BC. Appearance of the first megalithic monuments (dolmens, menhirs, etc.) in the Armorican peninsula.Around 325 BC. Voyage of the Massaliot navigator Pythéas, who reconnoitred the western coasts of Armorica.56 BC. Defeat of the Armorican coalition against the Roman army and navy, commanded by Caesar.Around 15-10 BC. Beginnings of the creation of the capitals of Gallo-Roman cities and beginning of Romanization.409-410 AD. Revolt of the Armoricans, who separate for a time from Rome. At V th century, beginning of migrations in Brittany. Bronze Age to Iron Age One of the defining features of the Bronze Age (c. 2500-800 BC) is the transition from collective burials to individual tombs, large tumulus with rich furnishings from the Early Bronze Age, as at Kernonen (Plouvorn, Finistère) dated around 2000 BC. J.-C., or simple burials in vault, where the deceased was accompanied only by a pottery. The social hierarchy that this suggests can also be seen in the massive production of copper alloy weapons intended for a warrior aristocracy, controlling an agricultural population and the extraction of metals. Although weapons are rarer there, early Iron Age society (c. 800-500 BC) must have been similarly segmented. The second Iron Age, marked by strong population growth and the multiplication of agricultural holdings, saw the Armorican peoples adopt various traits of the communities of inner Gaul (political organization, coinages, etc.). Are Armoricans Celtic? Last refuge of Celtic languages on the continent, the Armorican peninsula is considered as one of the main anchor points of the "civilization of the Celts" of Antiquity. It cannot be denied that Celtic was spoken there at an ancient date, as evidenced by Pytheas mentioning, in the IV e century BC. J.-C., Ouxisama (Ouessant, “the highest [island”)), and the names of Roman cities, such as Darioritum (Vannes, “the bubbling ford”). Several features of local cultures (deities, sanctuaries, monetary types, etc.) and certain decorative themes used by craftsmen are also similar to those seen in continental Gaul. But identities and similarities do not imply population movements, attested elsewhere (“Celtic migrations” to Italy and the Balkans in the IV e and III e centuries BC. J.-C.), but invisible here. The Armoricans are essentially natives who have partially adopted, according to models that are debating, traits specific to the "Celtic world". What words reveal Although sometimes Frenchified (Croaz Hent [“road crossing”] now Croissant), place names in western Brittany almost always belong to Breton. They often refer to relief (lead , “height”) or nature (coat , "wood", raden , "fern"), and often consist of a first element, such as iliz - (“church”), ker - (“inhabited place”), lan - (“hermitage”), lez - (“stately home”), loc - (“holy place”), plou -, rain - or ple - (“parish”), ti - (“house”), associated with a personal name, a common name or an adjective. Thus Plestin (Côtes-d’Armor), the “parish of [Saint] Jestin”; Lannilis (Finistère), the “hermitage of the church”; Ty Glaz, the “blue house”. As for the Breton language, it is spoken today by just over 200,000 people living mainly in the west of the peninsula. Breton belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European languages and to its Brittonic branch (Cornish and Welsh). It is close to Cornish, a vestige of the ancient Celtic languages of insular Brittany, which was spoken in Cornwall until the end of the 18 th century. Breton is not a native language in Brittany and would have been "imported" there during the "Breton migrations" of the V e -VII e centuries after. J.-C., eliminating the idiom mainly used in this region. The latter must have been Gaulish rather than Latin, but evidence of such continuity is almost completely lacking – the hypothesis, put forward in the 1950s, that the Vannes dialect was a survival of Gaulish no longer valid. . We also do not know how Breton imposed itself in the region, although a model of diffusion and imitation from the dominant classes is plausible.
