The Bretons

This book draws upon a wide range of archaeological and literary material to provide a history of one of the most distinctive and individualistic regions of France and its people, from prehistoric times to the present. Focusing upon such themes as trade, settlement, agriculture, transport, population, religion, art and languages, the authors explore the characteristics of a society which has combined peoples from two different linguistic and cultural traditions in a long-enduring political union. In the book’s opening chapter, Patrick Galliou reconstructs early Armorica (the Gaulish name for Brittany) where as early as 5000 BC, under gradually changing physical conditions, human communities appeared in the peninsula and a highly idiosyncratic culture evolved. Dr Galliou traces the development of this culture through the later Neolithic, and the Bronze Age, to Roman and post-Roman Brittany. Beginning with the Frankish period, Michael Jones traces Breton history in the Middle Ages. He describes the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Brittany; the Plantagenets; the civil war (1341-65), and the medieval Breton state under the Montfort Dukes. He concludes with an overview of Brittany’s history from the end of the Middle Ages to the present day. Extensively illustrated with half-tones, maps and diagrams, the book will be of wide interest to archaeologists, historians and anthropologists, as well as to the general reader.