County of Nantes

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The county of Nantes around the city of Nantes was occupied by the Bretons in the middle of the 6th century . Around 750 Pippin the Younger took possession of the country and established a fragile Carolingian rule here : Nantes was combined with the County of Rennes and the County of Vannes to form the Breton Mark .

Margrave Lambert, the son-in-law of Emperor Lothar I , concluded an alliance with the Breton Nominoë around 820 , which broke up during the conflicts within the imperial family, and which gave Nominoë the opportunity to rule here after the Normans sacked the lower reaches of the Loire in 843 to be erected and defended by defeating the Franks in 845.

After Nominoe († 851), his son Erispoe († 857) and his cousin Salomon († 874) ruled, then Pasquitan I, Count of Vannes and Solomon's son-in-law. After Pasquitan's death in 877, his brother Alain I the Great († 907) defended power against the attempts of Judicael, the son of Gurvants, Count von Rennes, to oust him. Alain defeated him in 888 at the Battle of Questembert and gained suzerainty over Berengar of Bayeux, Judicael's brother-in-law and new Count of Rennes, which brought the region a time of peace.

After the occupation of the country by the Loire-Normans in 913, Alain's grandson Alain II. Barbe-torte only succeeded in liberating the country in 937, but this time finally ending the Norman threat, forcing the Count of Rennes into submission and thereby becoming himself Duke of Brittany.

After his death in 952 a war of succession broke out between his legitimate son Drogo and his illegitimate sons Guerec and Hoel I, who took turns in power. But they could not withstand the intervention of Count Conan I of Rennes, who conquered Nantes in 990.

Count Fulk Nerra of Anjou in turn succeeded in 992 in the battle of conquereuil , Conan from Rennes to beat, the case was killed. Fulko occupied half of the county, the descendants of Hoel kept the title and the other half, first under the sovereignty of Anjou, from 995 under that of Count Geoffroy von Rennes, Conan's son. Fulko Nerra gave up his claims to Nantes only in 1029.

Through a wedding in 1056 the county went to Count Hoel II of Cornouaille († 1084). His son Alain IV. Fergent , already Count of Cornouaille and Rennes, took possession of Nantes in 1103 after the death of his brother Mathias. He allied himself with Heinrich Beauclerk , the youngest son of Wilhelm the Conqueror , against his brother Robert Courteouse - and lost his entire independence in the struggle for Normandy through this alliance. In the Peace of Gisors of 1113, the French King Louis VI. the Duke of Normandy sovereignty over Brittany, which thereby fell into a county.

As Conan III. , Son of Alain IV., His son Hoel III. Disinherited for illegitimacy, Hoel was able to establish himself in Nantes until he was chased away by the city's inhabitants in 1156. They elected the husband of Constanze of Brittany , the daughter of Conan III, Gottfried von Anjou , brother of the English King Henry II, as count; after his death the county was directly subordinate to the English king, in 1203 the county of Nantes came to an end.

See: List of the Counts of Nantes

literature

Web links

  • Gallica , Essai sur l'Histoire de la Ville et du Comté de Nantes par Gérard Mellier Maire de Nantes, published in 1872 by Léon Maître and Chronique de Nantes