AHC: A Breton William the Bastard
- Thread starter Math
- Start date
Because the dying king said so (on his deathbed), was one of the things used by Harold Godwinson to shore up his claim, William’s claim stems from an earlier moment.
Still an interesting suggestion.
I mean Edward and William were buddies. is it that implausible that the Edward the Confessor, who was in exile, exile, not knowing his relative Edward the Exile was alive that he'd make such a promise? It wouldn't be that different than promising the moon. I'm not saying such a promise happened, but it was plausible.
You need to look at it with the mindset of the time, not the one of our own time. My high (middle) school history teacher already taught me that. William believed it, and based on that, I can understand he made Harold swear on the relics of saints to uphold it, during his prolonged stay there.
Nowadays, it can only be used as an inspiration to reach such goals.
Not for William and his followers, besides oaths, especially sworn on saintly relics, were taken seriously, also by Anglo-Saxons.
dcharles
Banned
Warning
Not seriously enough to avoid a giant civil war and a genocide.
And that's the last thing I'm saying on the subject.
To be honest mate you haven't really said anything on the subject to begin with. You pretty effectively derailed the thread, though
Somehow leaving one heir to succeed Alan I might be the first step to leaving Brittany in a position to later conquer England? Would be in a much better position to answer the Viking invasion without a succession crisis. Trying to regain territorial losses seems to occupy a lot of Alan I's successors efforts, and letting those efforts be redirected towards consolidating what you already have and then growing from that position of strength seems ideal.
This is absolutely a scenario I played through in Crusader Kings 2, probably multiple times 😂
Harold also got himself shipwrecked and his family was in WIlliam's court... basically a comfortable house arrest. Those oaths were made under duress. Normally even medieval chronicles don't take oaths under duress seriously but are suspiciously silent about Harold and William when condemning these. Honestly, I think people just didn't want to critize the ancestor of henry II. If Harold won, I suspect his broken oath would just be seen as another example of "one that doesn't count" due to his family effecitly being hostage when they all got stuck in Normandy.
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
Come on, dude. I understand people being a bit heated about the righteousness of one side or another of a historical conflict when they have some kind of connection to it, but being angry and inflammatory about the righteousness of one side of a succession dispute 957 years ago (that is nine hundred and fifty-seven years) sounds less like you have a connection and more like you just really want to start a fight. You should try to be less inflammatory.
So a surviving Pascweten then?
I suppose it would only be fitting for him to have an Alfred-esque episode where Rognvald temporarily depose him, only for Pascweten to fight back in a guerrilla war and reclaim the kingdom. During which time he could send his wife and his son Judicael to the French court and send his brother in law to the court of Edward the Elder for the same reasons, garnering support to push the vikings out, and beginning the entanglement of the House of Wessex and the "House of Brittany". Edward grants some men and ships to help the cause, a victorious Pascweten gifts Breton Saint relics, and then a marriage is arranged between Judicael and one of Edward's daughters (lets go with Ælfgifu). Going off the very confusing wiki entries the alt Judicael his descendants will probably be quarreling with the dukes of normandy, the counts of Maine and Anjou, and by extention of the latter (among other reasons) opposed to the Robertian kings.
Theres a decent chance that in this environment the Bretons are the ones to invent/extensively employ castles, which could allow for Brittany to expand further into OTL Lower normandy as far as Caen/ the river orne
Not sure who you mean? Pascwethen was Alan's brother (although recent authors sometimes call him Alan's father) and didn't have any children. Judicael was Gurwant's son and maybe Alan's brother-in-law (if Alan's wife Aourken was Gurwant's daughter, as it has recently been supposed). Unless Gurwant's male line die out as OTL, the succession war will go on between his and Alan's descendants.
I admit I'm only going off of the web of Wikipedia entries so I could be wrong, but according to them Alan I had a son Pascweten who married a Gerberga and died in 903, and at least one later genealogy says that Judicael Berengar (father of Conan I) was his son
Oh I see which one you mean - although I think historians disagree about whether it's a plausible theory or not.
True but I figured might as well run with it, its alternate history after all.
So thinking on how Bretons would rule after the conquest, I find myself curious if they had their own legal traditions like the welsh did, or if they followed after Frankish models of rule?
I'm not sure; I don't know much about Medieval Breton laws. There's this article about an old text about Breton (or Briton) laws but the author's theory (that it was a text from Armorica, not Britain) has been discredited in another article. The origin of the text is almost impossible to establish because Brythonic languages were very similar at the time. Even its date of composition isn't certain (from 6th to 9th century).
Regarding succession laws in the nobility however, I think some of the Breton customs may have been similar to Welsh ones because before the Assise au Comte Geoffroy (1180s), lands used to be divided between the deceased's sons, I think the same thing used to happen in Wales. Maybe that's why Alan I wasn't succeeded by one person and the Kingdom of Brittany was divided between his sons and son-in-law.