In Rennes, a seat in the flesh

In Rennes, a tomb of soldiers buried in the Jacobin convent and identified as belonging to the royal army was discovered • INRAP / SERVICE DE PRESSE

Traces of the last act of the war in Brittany were recently found with the identification of two mass graves in Rennes. They are located in the Jacobins convent, excavated in 2013 before its transformation into a congress center. At the end of the work, archaeologists from Inrap (National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research) unearthed two graves, one containing 4 remains, the other containing 28 skeletons!

Enemies side by side

These had not been thrown anyhow on the ground, because they were deposited in an orderly fashion. To find out who these buried men were, the researchers carried out carbon-14 dating and isotopic analyzes which revealed that they were soldiers with traces of wounds. Only one war corresponds to the time and place:the siege of Rennes in 1491. The isotopic study makes it possible to find the geographical origin of the deceased (the ratio of the elements contained in the teeth or the bones varies according to the regions); 3 of the 4 deceased in the first pit are Breton, while the 28 other skeletons correspond to soldiers from different French regions (Northern Alps, Rhône Valley, Poitou, Normandy, etc.). They were therefore fighters of the royal army, embarked on a war for control of Brittany.

Also read:Brittany:the glorious times of the Duchy

In the 15th ^th century, the duchy of Brittany, a prosperous region, became a princely state independent of the kingdom of France. Duke Francis II wants his daughters to succeed him at the head of the duchy, but the king of France, Charles VIII, also lays claim to the region. War broke out in 1487. French troops, gathering nearly 15,000 men, entered Brittany against the Duke's 16,000 men. The royal armies take the cities one after the other. In 1491, they had 50,000 men and laid siege to Rennes. The war ends with the marriage of Anne de Bretagne, 14-year-old daughter of François II, and Charles VIII. From then on, Brittany, linked to France, lost its autonomy.