Brittany is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown. Brittany is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and is one of the six Celtic nations, retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history.
Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in Northwestern France at the confluence of the rivers Ille and Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the Brittany region and Ille-et-Vilaine department. In 2017, its urban area had a population of 357,327 inhabitants, while the larger metropolitan area had a population of 739,974. The inhabitants of Rennes are called Rennais (masculine) and Rennaises (feminine) in French.
Brittany is the westernmost region of Metropolitan France. It covers about four fifths of the territory of the historic province of Brittany. It is one of two regions in Metropolitan France that do not contain any landlocked departments, the other being Corsica.
The flag of Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, is called the Gwenn-ha-du, which means white and black, in Breton. The flag was designed in 1923 by Morvan Marchal. It is also unofficially used in the department of Loire-Atlantique, although this now belongs to the Pays de la Loire and not to the region of Brittany, as the territory of Loire-Atlantique is historically part of the province of Brittany. Nantes, its prefecture, was once one of the two capital cities of Brittany.
Dol-de-Bretagne, cited in most historical records under its Breton name of Dol, is a commune in the Ille-et-Vilaine département in Brittany in northwestern France.
Eau et rivières de Bretagne is the second most important environmental organisation in Brittany, the first being the SEPNB now called Bretagne Vivante. It was created in November 1969 by anglers and environmentalists under the name APPSB which it kept until 1983. Since the beginning it has been linked to French organisations like the Association Nationale pour la Protection des Eaux et Rivières and the Association Nationale de Défense des Rivières à Saumon, while remaining completely independent. The first leaders were Pierre Phélipot and above all Jean-Claude Pierre, who remained president of the association until 1985 and was general secretary afterwards for another 15 years. The association incorporated up to 2000 members and 83 local groups. Since the beginning, the association has been active on many issues and in many ways, which could be organised around three themes: informing, doing and defending.
Michael Christopher Emlyn Jones is a British historian.
James Bouillé was a French architect from Brittany.
The Revolt of the papier timbré was an anti-fiscal revolt in the west of Ancien Régime France, during the reign of Louis XIV from April to September 1675. It was fiercest in Lower Brittany, where it took on an anti-lordly tone and became known as the revolt of the Bonnets rouges or revolt of the Torrebens. It was unleashed by an increase in taxes, including the papier timbré, needed to authenticate official documents.
Arthur Le Moyne de La Borderie, was a Breton historian, regarded as a father of Brittany's historiography.
Anne of Brittany was the object of representations very early on. The royal propaganda of Charles VIII and, later on, of Louis XII idealized her as a symbol of the perfect queen, on the union between the kingdom and the duchy, and of the return to peace. Maximilian's Austria having been evicted from the marriage, had a different perspective on the events. Throughout the centuries, historians and popular imagery forged a very different Anne of Brittany, attributing her physical or psychological characteristics or actions that are not necessarily verifiable through historical data.
Régis-Marie-Joseph de l'Estourbeillon de la Garnache was a Breton aristocrat and politician who was associated with Breton regionalist activism. He is generally known as Régis de l'Estourbeillon, but held the title Marquis de l'Estourbeillon.
Henri-Georges Dottin was a French philologist, Celtic scholar, and politician. His magnum opus, La langue gauloise (1918), remained the reference introduction to the Gaulish language until the publication of Pierre-Yves Lambert's La langue gauloise in 1994. It is still widely used today as a textbook in Celtic linguistic studies.
Aiquin, subtitled La conqueste de la Bretaigne par le roy Charlemaigne, is a medieval Old French chanson de geste about the rivalry between a Saracen king, Aiquin, and the Christian emperor Charlemagne. The French medievalist Joseph Bédier called it a "consolidation of history and legend in an imposing ensemble." It survives in one fifteenth-century manuscript, BnF fr. 2233, now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It is usually attributed to Garin Trousseboeuf, possibly a cleric of Dol. According to historian Éric Borgnis-Desbordes, it was written in the early thirteenth century, probably around 1213 and under the guise of a chanson de geste featuring Charlemagne and the Viking invasions in the tenth century, the author may have alluded to “the transition from Plantagenet domination to Capetian influence in Brittany”. It is the oldest extant French text from Brittany.
The French–Breton War lasted from 1487 to 1491. The cause of this war was the approaching death of the Breton Duke Francis II of Brittany, who had no clear successor. If not resolved, this meant a resumption of issues from a previous War of the Breton Succession (1341–1364), which had rival claimants allying with England or France, resulting in an ambiguous peace treaty that failed to prevent future succession disputes.
The Order of the Ermine was originally a chivalric order of the 14th and 15th centuries in the Duchy of Brittany. The ermine is the emblem of Brittany. In the 20th century, it was revived by the Cultural Institute of Brittany as an honor for those contributing to Breton culture. It was created in 1972 to honor those who contribute to Breton culture and development. At its head is a Chancellor and two vice-chancellors: Riwanon Kervella and André Lavanant. The siege is at the Institut Culturel de Bretagne, the castle of the Ermine, Vannes.
Albert Le Grand was a Breton hagiographer and a Dominican brother.
Émile Auguste Renault, better known by his pseudonym Malo-Renault, was a French pastelist, color engraver and illustrator. He was born in Saint-Malo on October 5, 1870, and died in Le Havre on July 19, 1938.
Tourism in Brittany attracts around 13 million visitors a year. An important sector of the region's economy, it accounts for just under 10% of the region's GDP, and directly employs just under 70,000 people. Seasonal activity extends from May to September, and is mainly concentrated on the coast, particularly in the departments of Finistère and Morbihan.
