Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

survey.1 They included Normans, some English, at least one Fleming, as well as Bretons. (The native Cornish seem to have been reduced to serfdom by the English.) With regard to the Bretons, one can only pinpoint those with distinctively Breton names, but in addition there may be others who, coming from the French-speaking districts of Brittany, bear names which are indistinguishable from those of their Norman neighbours. These sub-tenants of the Norman count were not of the nobility and we have no firm clue as to their place of origin, but it seems probable that they were part of the army under the command of the Breton leaders, Judhel and Brient, who undertook the conquest of west Devon and Cornwall in the campaigns of 1067 and 1068, after the conquest of Exeter by William of Normandy. Juhellus filius Aluuredi was granted Totnes, a house in Exeter, 107 manors in Devonshire, but only one in Cornwall. This was Froxton in the north-east, near the Devon border, and need not concern us here. The other leader, Brient of Bretagne, was the second son of Eudon, the irrepressible count of Penthièvre whose repeated rebellions against his elder brother, Alain III, duke of Brittany, form a recurring pattern in Breton history during the eleventh century. For his part in the invasion of England Brient seems to have been awarded the lordship of Cornwall, and estates in Suffolk and elsewhere. He died before 1086 and his estates had by then become part of the enormous grants made by King William to Robert of Mortain who is usually reckoned to be the first earl of Cornwall. An interest in Cornwall, however, seems to have been maintained by the lords of Richmond (Yorkshire) Alan Rufus and Alan Niger who were younger brothers of Brient. In 1140, during the anarchy, their nephew and heir, Alan III of Richmond, briefly obtained Cornwall from King Stephen, only to lose it within twelve months to Reginald de Dunstanville. While it is tempting to assume that the Bretons in Cornwall at the time of the Domesday Survey had been followers of Brient de Bretagne, one has to bear in mind that a number of other Breton lords and their younger sons had taken part in the invasion. These included Morvan, the vicomte de Leon, Robert, baron of Vitre, Raoul, son of the baron of Fougeres, sons of the sire de Dinan and of the sire de Chateaugiron.2 Other recognisable Breton names can 1 Victoria County History: Cornwall, vol. 2, pt. 8 (1924), p. 58. Z Arthur de la Borderie, Histoire de Bretagne (1896), vol. 3, p. 25.