Normans and Bretons: English and Welsh?

[Johnston]

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marche_de_Neustrie

Would you say that this form of Neustrie formed a bulwark against people from across the Channel, that the Bretons were Welsh colonists, and the Normans being English colonists?

It is well known that the Bretons considered themselves rightful heirs of Roman Britain at the time of the Saxon invasion...but what about these Saxons, and the next invasion of Danes? The Bessin was colonized by Saxons (who lived opposite, in England), a few hundred years before the Danes were expelled by Saxon King Alfred the Great to Rouen. Basse Normandie seems centered on the Saxon settlement, and Haute Normandie on the Danish. Both Saxons and Danes are considered integral to English identity, and not the French.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B4te_saxonne
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandie

Considering the connections both ethnic groups have with the Island, how is the Norman Conquest unforeseen? Neither Normandy nor Brittany appear to be Gallic in origin, and for some very long time, were marked as foreigners living on the border of the Merovingian and Carolingian kingdoms. Even during the Capetian era, they were so separate as to be part of the English establishment. This only began to change from the Valois period. The Duke of Normandy was King of England as well as Duke of Aquitaine, and the Duke of Brittany was Earl of Richmond in Yorkshire, who engaged with the Scottish kingdom as hostiles, separately from the Auld Alliance.

That is another thing--Aquitaine. The Gascons were also considered foreign, tossed back and forth between the French, English, and the Spaniards, until the Bourbons settled this for good, to the point where half is French and half is Spanish.

This seems reason enough why the King of England should also be King of France, when two to three distinct ethnic groups in France would hail his banner. Some say Flanders and Burgundy were additional reasons, and that would especially be so in matters of economy, like the textile industry. Flanders is where the Belgae were from, who founded Winchester, the capital of the West Saxon kingdom that preceded English unification. I would agree that Burgundy has no other reason to be pro-English, since they were otherwise German. King Stephen of England was from Blois, which was the House of Champagne, and the Angevins who came afterward claimed Toulouse. There is not one part of France that has not had some kind of relationship with England on a territorial level.

I mentioned the Belgae as colonizing Britain, but so did the Parisii, in Yorkshire. There would thus be a very old precedent for cross-Channel/Manche relations, as important as the North Sea relations, and both nations have both.

It would be interesting to place a referendum on Normandy and Brittany with respect to independent relations with England and Wales. England still flies the Norman banner of the leopards, and has the Channel Islands. The only difficulty with this arrangement is that England also has an ethnic mesh with Scotland, in the Lowlands, between the Hadrianic and Antonine walls.

[Albion]

Not really. But if you ask which regions of France are most similar to the English and Welsh due to cultural transmission and proximity, those two would be your answer.
Normandy is in my view the region most similar to England, Brittany to Wales. That's perhaps why a lot of Brits in France tend to show favouritism towards these two regions.

[Cail]

Bretons "are" Cornish rather than Welsh. Brittany was settles from Cornwall after all. There are XVIIc. (if i remember correctly) accounts of Cornish-speaking sailors from Britain still being able to communicate with locals in Brittany. Cornish went extinct in XIXc., alas. I don't think modern Welsh is mutually intelligible with modern Breton though, at least not sufficiently so.

[Ouistreham]

Bretons "are" Cornish rather than Welsh. Brittany was settles from Cornwall after all. There are XVIIc. (if i remember correctly) accounts of Cornish-speaking sailors from Britain still being able to communicate with locals in Brittany.

This is right.

But in terms of history, Brittany should rather compare to Ireland.

Famous British author and agricultural expert Arthur Young, who visited extensively France in the years 1787-1789, wrote about Normandy in his travel diary in 1788:


August 15 - All the way from Rouen there is a scattering of country seats, which I am glad to see; farm-houses and cottages every where, and the cotton manufacture in all. Continues the same to Harfleur. To Havre de Grace, the approach strongly marks a very flourishing place: the hills are almost covered with little new built villas, and many more are building; some are so close as to form almost streets, and considerable additions are also making to the town.—30 miles.

The 16th. Enquiries are not necessary to find out the prosperity of this town; it is nothing equivocal: fuller of motion, life, and activity, than any place I have been at in France.

The 19th. To Pont L'Eveque, towards which town the country is richer, that is, has more pasturage; the whole has singular features, composed of orchard inclosures, with hedges so thick and excellent, though composed of willow, with but a sprinkling of thorns, that one can scarcely see through them; chateaus are scattered, and some good, yet the road is villainous. Pont I'Eveque is situated in the Pay d'Auge, celebrated for the great fertility of its pastures. To Lisieux, through the same rich district, fences admirably planted, and the country thickly inclosed and wooded.—At the hotel d'Angleterre, an excellent inn, new, clean, and well furnished; and was well served and well fed.—26 miles.

The 28th, return to Carentan; and the 29th, pass through a rich and thickly inclosed country, to Coutances, capital of the district called the Cotentin. They build in this country the best mud houses and barns I ever saw, excellent habitations, even of three stories, and all of mud, with considerable barns and other offices. The earth (the best for the purpose is a rich brown loam) is well kneaded with straw; and being spread about four inches thick on the ground, is cut in squares of nine inches, and these are taken with a shovel and tossed to the man on the wall who builds it; and the wall built, as in Ireland, in layers, each three feet high, that it may dry before they advance. The thickness about two feet. They make them project about an inch, which they cut off layer by layer perfectly smooth. If they had the English way of white washing, they would look as well as our lath and Plaister, and are much more durable. In good houses the doors and windows are in stone work.—20 miles.

Three days later A. Young enters Brittany. The scene immediately changes!


The 31st. At Pont Orsin, enter Bretagne; there seems here a more minute division of farms than before. There is a long street in the episcopal town of Doll, without a glass window; a horrid appearance. My entry into Bretagne gives me an idea of its being a miserable province.—22 miles.

3.28
SEPTEMBER 1st. To Combourg, the country has a savage aspect; husbandry not much further advanced, at least in skill, than among the Hurons, which appears in credible amidst inclosures; the people almost as wild as their country, and their town of Combourg one of the most brutal filthy places that can be seen; mud houses, no windows, and a pavement so broken, as to impede all passengers, but ease none—yet here is a chatean, and inhabited; who is this Mons. de Chateaubriant, the owner, that has nerves strung for a residence amidst such filth and poverty?

To Rennes the same strange wild mixture of desert and cultivation, half savage, half human.—31 miles.

[...] the distinction between the noblesse and roturiers no where stronger, more offensive, or more abominable than in Bretagne. [...]

The 5th. To Montauban. The poor people seem poor indeed; the children terribly ragged, if possible worse clad than it with no cloaths at all; as to shoes and stockings they are luxuries. A beautiful girl of six or seven years playing with a stick, and smiling under such a bundle of rags as made my heart ache to see her: they did not beg, and when I gave them any thing seemed more surprized than obliged. One third of what I have seen of this province seems uncultivated, and nearly all of it in misery. What have kings, and ministers, and parliaments, and states, to answer for their prejudices, seeing millions of hands that would be industrious, idle and starving, through the execrable maxims of despotism, or the equally detestable prejudices of a feudal nobility.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Arthur_Young_%281741-1820%29.jpg

http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Young/yngTF3.html#Chapter%203

[Logan]

'Would you say that this form of Neustrie formed a bulwark against people from across the Channel, that the Bretons were Welsh colonists, and the Normans being English colonists?'

No. The Bretons received British Keltic immigrants whom did not wish to submit to the English. It might seem so by the time of Crecy, Poitiers or Agincourt.

'It is well known that the Bretons considered themselves rightful heirs of Roman Britain at the time of the Saxon invasion...but what about these Saxons, and the next invasion of Danes? The Bessin was colonized by Saxons (who lived opposite, in England), a few hundred years before the Danes were expelled by Saxon King Alfred the Great to Rouen. Basse Normandie seems centered on the Saxon settlement, and Haute Normandie on the Danish. Both Saxons and Danes are considered integral to English identity, and not the French.'

The Gaulish influence in Britain is well represented in the Keltic. The French with the Normans onwards, is miniscule. All the latter conflicts did their part as well in minimizing similarities.

'Considering the connections both ethnic groups have with the Island, how is the Norman Conquest unforeseen? Neither Normandy nor Brittany appear to be Gallic in origin, and for some very long time, were marked as foreigners living on the border of the Merovingian and Carolingian kingdoms. Even during the Capetian era, they were so separate as to be part of the English establishment. This only began to change from the Valois period. The Duke of Normandy was King of England as well as Duke of Aquitaine, and the Duke of Brittany was Earl of Richmond in Yorkshire, who engaged with the Scottish kingdom as hostiles, separately from the Auld Alliance.'

The people listed above were not selecting ethnic groups. Normandy was named after the Scandinavians. Like the others, assimulation was paramount, not ethnic purity.

'That is another thing--Aquitaine. The Gascons were also considered foreign, tossed back and forth between the French, English, and the Spaniards, until the Bourbons settled this for good, to the point where half is French and half is Spanish.

This seems reason enough why the King of England should also be King of France, when two to three distinct ethnic groups in France would hail his banner. Some say Flanders and Burgundy were additional reasons, and that would especially be so in matters of economy, like the textile industry. Flanders is where the Belgae were from, who founded Winchester, the capital of the West Saxon kingdom that preceded English unification. I would agree that Burgundy has no other reason to be pro-English, since they were otherwise German. King Stephen of England was from Blois, which was the House of Champagne, and the Angevins who came afterward claimed Toulouse. There is not one part of France that has not had some kind of relationship with England on a territorial level.'

One is looking back upon a Medieval system of government.

'I mentioned the Belgae as colonizing Britain, but so did the Parisii, in Yorkshire. There would thus be a very old precedent for cross-Channel/Manche relations, as important as the North Sea relations, and both nations have both.'

These links would have been erased durning the Roman occupation.

'It would be interesting to place a referendum on Normandy and Brittany with respect to independent relations with England and Wales. England still flies the Norman banner of the leopards, and has the Channel Islands. The only difficulty with this arrangement is that England also has an ethnic mesh with Scotland, in the Lowlands, between the Hadrianic and Antonine walls.'

Once again, I would imagine that you give too much to supposed ethnic relationships. Same or similar cultures might be a better reasoning.

[Wulfhere]

One only has to read the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to discover what the English thought of their Norman invaders in the years subsequent to 1066. They thought of them as French. And for a very good reason - they were French. Any Scandinavian element in the Norman ruling class had long since been bred out. As for the invasion being unforeseen - well, it wasn't, but not for the reasons cited above. After all, England had had a traitor-king - French by upbringing and half so by blood - sitting on its throne for a quarter of a century before 1066. He had favoured Normans in his court, and pretended to give the throne to William the Bastard, when in fact he had no legal right to do so.

[Johnston]

One only has to read the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to discover what the English thought of their Norman invaders in the years subsequent to 1066. They thought of them as French. And for a very good reason - they were French. Any Scandinavian element in the Norman ruling class had long since been bred out. As for the invasion being unforeseen - well, it wasn't, but not for the reasons cited above. After all, England had had a traitor-king - French by upbringing and half so by blood - sitting on its throne for a quarter of a century before 1066. He had favoured Normans in his court, and pretended to give the throne to William the Bastard, when in fact he had no legal right to do so.That is true. They were considered French under the laws, just as the laws divided the land between Angles (inc. Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria) and Danes (apparently East Anglia). The French never formed a territory out of English soil, only used England as a satellite cash cow. Conversely now, the Channel Islands are English dependencies and part of the Diocese of Winchester (not even in their own name, unlike the Isle of Mann!), LOL.

[Treffie]

Bretons "are" Cornish rather than Welsh. Brittany was settles from Cornwall after all. There are XVIIc. (if i remember correctly) accounts of Cornish-speaking sailors from Britain still being able to communicate with locals in Brittany. Cornish went extinct in XIXc., alas. I don't think modern Welsh is mutually intelligible with modern Breton though, at least not sufficiently so.

What I've found is that Welsh and Breton are more mutually intelligible through speech, but Welsh and Cornish are more mutually intelligible through writing. Cornish looks a lot more familiar than it sounds.