It is easy to imagine the scale of the disaster: the empire withdraws; pagan invaders arrive and settle; wars are fought; kingdoms fall. Many did: they migrated to Brittany. There had already been some settlement of Britons across the sea from Cornwall, and numbers increased as Roman rule came to an end. The end result of this process was the establishment of a new, British kingdom outside of Britain proper. Amazingly, more than years later, these ancient British refugees still have their own language.
Their average age is 70 years. After its initial establishment in the wake of the collapse of Roman Britain, Brittany retained its independence. Benson ed. Likewise Brittany, united to the French royal domain in the late 15 th century by the marriages of two duchesses, Anne and her daughter Claude, to successive French monarchs, but not fully integrated into the kingdom of France until Hall, op.
The pages refer to Lais of Marie de France , ed. Burgess and Busby. Moody and F. Martin eds , The Course of Irish History , ; 3 rd ed. Byrne and ch. Connolly ed. The text was edited by R. Stewart Macalister, Lebor Gabala Erenn , 5 vols. Burgess and Keith Busby, eds and trans, p. All references to The Mabinogion are based on this translation. It was also of importance to Gaulish Druids who were trained there, so its loss did not affect Britain alone.
Morgan ed. This work testifies to the skill of Irish musicians, whom the Welsh and the Scots sought to emulate, with some success: chapter 94, p. Gerald was speaking from personal knowledge and experience, since he had been in Ireland more than once, firstly to visit members of his family in , and then to accompany Prince later King John in Lady Charlotte Guest, an Englishwoman who, though married to a Welshman, was not a native Welsh speaker herself , thought that Mabinogion was the plural of Mabinogi , a rare medieval word which is difficult to interpret.
Her title is not quite accurate, but it stuck, and soon became conventional. Lacy ed. Thereafter he was known outside Scotland as James I. This was a personal union, not a political one; the three kingdoms remained legally separate, each with its own parliament and administration.
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Part 1: In the beginning…. Leo Carruthers. Outline The Middle English Breton lays of the 14 th century. Celtic settings in Old French and Middle English lays.
Celtic otherness: a political perspective. Celtic folklore: loss and preservation in the British Isles. The Mabinogion and Celtic enchantment. The Third and Fourth Branches of the Mabinogi. Full text PDF Send by e-mail. Alfred Ewert, ; Oxford, Blackwell, , reissued with introduct Ian Short, Oxford, Oxf The Modern Irish spelling is normally Leabhar G Top of page.
Browse Index Authors Keywords. The Old Law T. Follow us. Newsletters OpenEdition Newsletter. In collaboration with. In All OpenEdition. Home Catalogue of journals OpenEdition Search. All OpenEdition. These are separated by stone walls and hedges called bocages bow-KAHJ. Most of Brittany's towns and cities are found along the coast. As of the late s, there are only a small number of people who speak Breton as their first language. Many Breton surnames are derived from the word ker which means "house" , plus another syllable based on a Christian name.
Syllables commonly found in Breton place names include plou, meaning "parish" as in Ploudaniel ; lann, meaning "church" as in Lannion ; and gui, meaning "town" as in Guimiliau.
Other common words found in Breton place names are bihan small , braz large , men stone , and mor sea. Brittany is a land of legends and superstition. Many folk customs and legends center on death, symbolized by a character named Ankou. He figures in numerous tales, depicted as a skeleton carrying a scythe and often riding on a wooden cart. Bretons believe that the creaking of the cart Ankou rides in predicts the death of a person in the neighborhood.
According to legend, the town of Quimper was founded by King Gradlon. His former capital, the city of Is, is said to have been destroyed when his daughter, bewitched by the Devil, let in the floodwaters of the sea.
Escaping with her on horseback, the king received an order from Heaven to throw her into the sea. There she turned into the mermaid Marie-Morgane. It is said that if Mass is ever celebrated in one of Is's churches on Good Friday, the drowned city will be restored and the mermaid will become human again. The Bretons are devout Roman Catholics. Every town has its patron saint, represented by painted wooden statues that decorate the region's many churches. People pray to special saints for specific ailments.
Bretons are also noted for their pilgrimages religious journeys. Bretons celebrate France's religious, historical, and patriotic holidays throughout the year. The French observe Christmas by attending a midnight mass.
The most famous and important of Brittany's regional holidays are the pardons. These local religious festivals usually center on a particular saint or legend.
Incepit page to Gospel of Matthew. Because Brittany was inhabited by Britons in the fifth and sixth centuries, they brought the Insular Celtic or Brythonic language to Brittany.
The Brythonic Celtic languages are not closely related to Gaulish. It is believed by historians and linguists that the Gaulish inhabitants of the interior of Brittany adopted the Brittonic language. The demarcation line of the Breton language is west of a line of the cities of Alet, Corseul and Vannes.
Breton is most closely related to Cornish and distantly related to Welsh as both are southwestern Brittonic languages where the Breton people emigrated from. Breton is most distant from the Irish and Gaelic Scottish languages. Many Breton surnames derive from the word ker meaning house plus another syllable based on a Christian name. Some examples:. Another regional language of Brittany is Gallo , a Romance language descended from Latin. It is unlike Gaulish also. Gallo is closer to French although not mutually intelligible.
However, Gallo does share certain points of vocabulary, idiom and pronunciation with Breton. See map. Old Breton, therefore, has been attested to from the late ninth century. It was the language of the upper classes until about the 12th century, after which, it became the language of the commoners of western Brittany.
By the 12th century, the nobility followed by the bourgeoisie adopted the French language. The written language of the Duchy of Brittany was Latin and switched to French around the 15th century. Old Breton extant words are glosses in Latin manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries that are now scattered in libraries and collections throughout Europe. Historians and researchers believe that Old Breton literature inspired much of Arthurian literature.
The story of Tristan and Iseult and the romances of French historian and writer Cretien de Troy are believe to have come from the Bretons during the Old Breton language period. According to historians, Broceliands is located in Brittany and is considered today to be the Paimpont forest. Ruins of a castle around the lake are associated with the Lady of the Lake and a dolmen is said to be Merlin's tomb and a path is presented as Morgan le Fay's Val sans Retour.
The Bretons had a highly verbal tradition during the Old Breton period and passed their history, culture and customs down word of mouth from generation to generation. The oldest surviving manuscript form the Old Breton period has even predated any of the French manuscripts that have survived over the centuries.
This botanical manuscript is the most ancient text in a continental Brythonic language and was studied by the late professor Leon Fleuriot The manuscript is a fragment of medicinal recipes composed of plants, suggesting that the Breton language may well have been used by people of learning at the turn of the 11th century.
Another Breton manuscript on display at the British Library in London, is the Breton Gospel, which dates from about the ninth century. Although mostly written in Latin it is an important work in terms of the wider scope of Breton culture.
This manuscript attests to the high degree of learning and monasterial wealth in Brittany comparable to that of the Lindisfarne Gospels England and the Book of Kells Ireland. The Breton Gospel is written in the similar form of Carolingian minuscle lower case letters developed at Tours, France one of the classic centers of the Carolingian Revival or Renaissance.
The large illuminated letters of the Breton Gospel are like those found in the Carolingian manuscripts; however, the decoration is far more similar to the insular manuscripts such as the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels and suggests a continuum of this cultural tradition. The decoration in the Breton Gospel is simpler and more geometric than in the insular manuscripts. Before the 20th century, most of the Breton literature consists of religious writings. Jean-Francois Le Gondec played an important role in Breton literature by initiating a reform of the Breton orthography.
He produced an orderly Breton grammar and wrote the first Breton translation of the New Testament of the Bible. Today, there are four traditional dialects of the Breton language that correspond to the medieval bishoprics rather than linguistic divisions:. There are no clear boundaries between the dialects because they form a dialect continuum varying only slightly from one village to another. The French constitution states that the French government does not provide official recognition rights or funds to support the use of regional traditional languages, so French is taught in schools and is the official language of the country.
Brittany Cafe, Marais, France makes authentic Breton crepes. Since the 19th century, Brittany and its people began a revival of the Breton literature that continues to flourish today. The Breton language over the years has borrowed quite a lot of French vocabulary and some of the Gaulish language vocabulary into Breton.
From to the mid - 20th century, the Breton language was banned from the French school system and students were forbidden to speak it. France, today, does not recognize any local or regional languages.
French is the only recognized language of France. By , however, the forbidden language situation changed with the Deixonne Law. This law allowed Breton language and culture to be taught in French schools on a part-time basis. A modern standard orthography of Breton was devised in, but the dialect gwenedeg or Vannetais was not included.
That was changed in with a reformed orthography that finally included Vannetais. But, because Breton is not recognized by the French government as an official or regional language, it is now endangered. Breton, today, is mostly spoken in western Brittany. Eastern Brittany is where Gallo and French are spoken with a little Breton thrown in. Since the 's, the Bretons are focusing on preserving their unique culture and language rather than on political separation from France, which they once considered doing.
Since this time there is only a small number of people who speak Breton as a first language and they are mostly sixty-five years of age. Today, there are several newspapers and magazines written in the Breton language. There are also Breton radio and television stations that broadcast in the Breton. The Fest-noz, a Breton festival which began in the Middle Ages, was revived around the 's and is the traditional festival dance in Brittany.
Other traditional Breton dances are gavottes, an dro, hanter dro and the pinn. During the Fest-noz most of these dances are done in a chain or circle while holding the finger of the persons next to them. There are also pairs dancing and choreographed dances. Of course, the traditional dress has continued and is worn during festivals and for tourism reasons.
The men wear what I call the 'balloon pants' from the medieval and renaissance periods, with tights and wooden shoes. The women wear long dark dresses adorned with much embroidery and lace.
Their lace caps, called coiffes pronounced kwaffs are white lace with ribbons and each village or area has a different coiffe. Different types coiffes tell where the woman is from and if she is single, married or widowed. The most unusual of the coiffes is the 'coiffe of Bigouden.
It is an icon of folkloric Brittany. It is named for the city of Bigouden, a city in Brittany, historically known as Cap Caval, along the Bay of Audierne in the most southwestern area of Brokernev, southwest of the city of Quimper, France.
The Breton cuisine is basically French, but has local specialties. The Bretons have their own version of the crepe called a krampouezh-crepe which is a large thin pancake, filled with ham and a sunny-side up egg, and then folded at the corners. It is the only crepe in France that is eaten as a main meal. They also serve their crepes as desserts with a variety of fruits, jellies and jams to fill them. They are exquisite. The Bretons also make a beverage called chouchenn which is a type of Breton mead.
Another beverage is chistr , a cider drink.
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