Memory, invention and the Breton state: the first inventory of the ducal archives (1395) and the...

Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 275e296www.elsevier.com/locate/jmedhist

Memory, invention and the Breton state: the firstinventory of the ducal archives (1395) and the

beginnings of Montfort historiography

Michael Jones

School of History, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2 RD, UK

Abstract

The general importance of a small group of medieval Breton historians, either employed in the ducalchancery or close to the ruling dynasty, in shaping a view of the Breton past that was favourable to thecontemporary policies of the Montfortist dukes of Brittany between the late fourteenth and early sixteenthcentury has been well explained by recent writers. Mystery, however, still surrounds the identity of theauthor of the earliest ambitious attempt to recount the duchy’s history from remotest times to the presentin the Chronicon Briocense, ‘Chronicle of St-Brieuc’, compiled c.1389e1416. By using evidence that hascome to light in the course of editing the first inventory of ducal archives (1395), this article seeks to con-firm earlier hypotheses that Master Herve Le Grant, keeper of the Tresor des chartes, is the most likelycandidate as author of the Chronicon. The probability that he is also the main perpetrator of a series ofwell-known forged documents intended to justify ducal prerogatives which continued to have an impacton how the history of Brittany was written long after the duchy had lost its independence is also explored.� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Brittany; Chronicon Briocense; Ducal archives; Forgeries; Herve Le Grant; John IV; Historiography; Tresor

des chartes

Introduction

History, Winston Churchill said, would be kind to him, because he intended to write it. Asimilar thought seems to have crossed the minds of several Montfort dukes of Brittany, or at

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276 M. Jones / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 275e296

least occurred to some serving the dynasty in the later middle ages. It is well established thatmost surviving historical works from the duchy in this period were written by men who wereclose to the ruling family and administration, or were personally encouraged by their prince towrite or revise their books, using the ducal archives wherever necessary. Five main writers maybe cited: Alain Bouchart, Pierre Le Baud, Jean de Saint-Paul, Guillaume de Saint-Andre andthe Anonymous writer of the Chronicon Briocense.1 Bouchart (d. after 1514) and Le Baud(d. 1505) lived at the end of the period and will only be briefly considered in what follows;both wrote general histories of the duchy from its beginnings until their own day, thougheach stopped short of full accounts of the painful process whereby Brittany was absorbedinto the kingdom of France in the reign of Charles VIII. Invoking the medieval equivalent ofa ‘thirty-year rule’, Le Baud ends his history, eventually published in 1638,2 at the start of Fran-cis II’s reign in 1458, and Bouchart, whose Grandes Croniques de Bretaigne, the first publishedhistory of the duchy appeared in 1514, follows suit by ending his in 1488 on the death ofFrancis II.3 But they do recount at great length a history of the duchy which reflects ancienttraditions d naturally transmuted through Geoffrey of Monmouth for the earliest periods das well as giving later centuries a particular slant to reflect the interests of the Montfort dynastyand to justify its policies. This was largely what motivated the third author: Jean de Saint-Paul,courtier and chamberlain, who worked at his Chronique des ducs de Bretagne de la maison deMontfort from the 1440s to the mid 1470s, though sadly what has come down to us are simplyfragments of a much larger work.4

Of these three, Le Baud, born in Maine and thus not Breton by origin, is generally consid-ered the most impressive as an historian. In 1480 he produced his Compillation des croniques etystoires des Bretons which survives in a unique and exquisitely illuminated manuscript pre-sented to a patron, Jean de Derval, a distant relative of Le Baud’s mother.5 Then movinginto ducal circles as a spiritual adviser and secretary, he next wrote a short Genealogie destres ancien roys, ducs et princes qui au temps passe ont regy et gouverne ceste royalle princi-paute, completed in 1486. It served two purposes, first providing Duchess Marguerite de Foix,second wife of Francis II, with a brief precis of her new duchy’s long history, and secondly

1 Jean Kerherve, ‘Aux origines d’un sentiment national. Les chroniqueurs bretons de la fin du Moyen Age’, Bulletinde la Societe archeologique du Finistere [henceforward BSAF], cviii (1980), 165e206; Jean Kerherve, ‘L’Historiogra-

phie bretonne: La naissance de l’histoire en Bretagne: milieu XVeefin XVI e siecle’, in: Histoire litteraire et culturelle

de la Bretagne, ed. Jean Balcou and Yves Le Gallo, 3 vols (Paris-Geneva, 1987), vol. 1, 245e71; Jean Kerherve, ‘Entre

conscience nationale et identite regionale dans la Bretagne de la fin du Moyen Age’, in: Identite regionale et consciencenationale en France et en Allemagne du Moyen Age a l’epoque moderne, ed. Rainer Babel and Jean-Marie Moeglin

(Beihefte der Francia, Bd 39, Sigmaringen, 1997), 219e43. I have not unfortunately been able to consult Dominique

Philippe, ‘L’histoire en Bretagne du XIVe au XVIe siecle, ou la defense de l’identite’ (these pour le doctorat de nouveau

regime, Universite de Bretagne Occidentale Brest, 1988).2 Pierre Le Baud, Histoire de Bretagne avec les chroniques de Vitre et de Laval, ed. le sieur [Charles] d’Hozier (Paris,

1638).3 Alain Bouchart, Grandes Croniques de Bretaigne (Paris: Galliot du Pre, 1514). Four further editions were published

by 1541 (cf. Arthur de La Borderie, Etude bibliographique sur les Croniques de Bretaigne d’Alain Bouchart

(1514e1541) (Rennes, 1889)). Alain Bouchart, Les Grandes Croniques de Bretagne, ed. H. Le Meignen (Nantes,

1886), contains additions made from 1518 to carry the history on from 1488; Alain Bouchart, Grandes Croniquesde Bretaigne, ed. Marie-Louise Auger and Gustave Jeanneau, 3 vols (Paris, 1986e97), meticulously re-edits and anno-

tates the first edition.4 La Chronique de Bretagne de Jean de Saint-Paul, ed. Arthur de La Borderie (Nantes, 1881).5 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France [henceforward BnF], MS francais 8266; Jean-Christophe Cassard, ‘Un his-

torien au travail: Pierre Le Baud’, Memoires de la Societe d’Histoire et d’Archeologie de Bretagne, lxii (1985), 67e95.

277M. Jones / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 275e296

demonstrating the rights of women in both transmitting and enjoying the succession to Brittany,a matter of pressing political concern since the couple only had two daughters to succeed them.The presentation manuscript survives as do a number of other copies.6 After also producinga history of the counts of Laval and lords of Vitre,7 finally Le Baud undertook with the encour-agement of one of those daughters, Anne, now not only duchess but queen of France, a revisionof his earlier Compillation. This was completed shortly before his death on 19 September 1505,and entitled Le Livre des cronicques des roys, ducs et princes de Bretaigne armoricane aultre-ment nommee la moindre Bretaigne. This survives in a unique presentation manuscript for thequeen, currently British Library, Harleian MS 4371; this was the volume published by Charlesd’Hozier in 1638. The Derval manuscript was partly published by Charles de la Lande de Calanbetween 1907 and 1922, the edition unfortunately stopping at the year 1305.8

In diligently pursuing his researches, Le Baud not only (like Saint-Paul and Bouchart) readearlier works extensively but more enterprisingly carried out much investigation in ducal, sei-gneurial and ecclesiastical archives. Like a contemporary, William Worcestre, he has left usa notebook in which extracts and jottings from earlier chronicles and from archival sourcesthat he had consulted are jumbled together in an execrable hand that has challenged successivegenerations of scholars.9 In addition to its interest as evidence for the seriousness of his work-ing methods, technical competence and the indications it gives as to where he found his mate-rial, its historiographical importance is also fully recognised since it contains, amongst manyother things, extracts translated into French from a now lost original manuscript of the mostimportant early chronicle for Breton history, that of Nantes, put together between c.1049 andthe early thirteenth century.10

More relevant, however, to my present theme is one of the two earliest works which will beof central concern here, the Chronicon Briocense or Chronique de St-Brieuc, on which all threeauthors so far mentioned drew extensively. How it acquired that inappropriate name is difficultto explain since it has no obvious connection with the city or see of St-Brieuc which lay in theheartland of the Montfort dynasty’s great rivals, the counts of Penthievre. The Chronicon, put

6 Jean Kerherve, ‘La ‘‘Genealogie des Roys, Ducs et Princes de Bretaigne’’ de Pierre Le Baud (1486)’, in: Bretagne et

pays celtiques. Langues, histoire, civilisation. Melanges offerts a la memoire de Leon Fleuriot 1923e1987, ed. Gwen-

nole Le Menn and Jean-Yves Le Moing (Rennes, 1992), 519e60, including an edition based on the presentation man-

uscript, Geneva, Bibliotheque publique et universitaire, MS Petau 131; Jean-Christophe Cassard, ‘L’Histoire au renfort

de la diplomatie: La ‘‘Genealogie des roys, princes et ducs de Bretaigne’’ de Pierre Le Baud (1486)’, in: Actes du 107 e

Congres national des societes savantes (Brest 1982), Philologie et Histoire jusqu’a 1610, t. 2 Questions d’histoire deBretagne (Paris, 1984), 220e45.

7 Le Baud, Les Chroniques de Vitre, separately paginated 1e81, in Histoire, ed. d’Hozier.8 Pierre Le Baud, Croniques et ystoires des Bretons, ed. Charles de la Lande de Calan, 4 vols (Nantes, 1907e22).9 Archives departementales [henceforward AD] d’Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 F 1003, partly described in Chronicon Briocense.

Chronique de Saint-Brieuc. Texte critique et traduction, ed. Gwenael Le Duc and Claude Sterckx, t. 1 Chapitres I a CIX

(Paris, 1972), 8. The manuscript had passed through the hands of the great romantic historian Arthur de La Borderie (d.

1901), who refers to it as Vetus Collectio manuscripta de Rebus Britanniae Armoricae.10 La Chronique de Nantes (570eenviron 1049), ed. Rene Merlet (Paris, 1896), esp. viiiexxv for Le Baud and this

chronicle, citing the Vetus Collectio. The notebook also contains important fragments of a controversially dated

Legenda sancti Goeznouii which the author of the Chronicon Briocense had earlier used and on which Le Baud was

also to draw (cf. Claude Sterckx and Gwenael Le Duc, ‘Les fragments inedits de la vie de saint Goeznou’, Annales

de Bretagne [henceforward AB], lxxviii (1971), 158e66 and 277e85; Gwenael Le Duc, ‘La translation de Saint-

Mathieu, ms 101 du Mont-Cassin’, in: Saint-Matthieu de Fine-Terre a travers les ages. Colloque des 23 et 24 septembre

1994, ed. Bernard Tanguy and Marie-Claire Cloıtre (Plougonvelin, 1995), 49e73; idem, ‘La date de la Vita Goeznouei’,BSAF, cxxv (1996), 263e81).


together by a still-anonymous writer between c.1389 and 1416, was, however, the first serious latemedieval attempt to recount Breton history from the beginning to the author’s own day.11 Unfortu-nately it has only been incompletely published: I return to that and other issues concerning it shortly.

The fifth writer, who was a contemporary of the Anonymous, was Mr Guillaume de Saint-Andre, a ducal secretary and notary who between c.1382 and 1385 wrote a vernacular verse-lifeof his master, John IV (1364e99), in an epic chanson de geste style that enjoyed a brief revivalof popularity in the 1380s as exactly contemporary analogues, Chandos Herald’s Life of theBlack Prince and Jean Cuvelier’s Life of Bertrand du Guesclin, amply testify.12 But in thecase of both the Chronicon Briocense and the Libvre du bon duc Jehan far more was at stakethan the chivalric reputation of one Breton duke or an impartial narrative of recent events con-cerning the duchy. In the case of Guillaume de Saint-Andre, I have recently suggested that hiswork may well have been an attempt to counter the high repute of Charles de Blois, John IV’sdefeated rival, killed at the battle of Auray in 1364, which brought the long Breton civil war(1341e64) to an end.13 Charles enjoyed popular cult status following his death, though theofficial process to obtain his sanctification, opened at Angers in 1371 and championed bythe Franciscans and the French royal family, had subsequently run into the sands in a welterof conflicting political interests.14 In any event, Saint-Andre’s portrayal of John IV is a clever,closely observed and flattering characterisation that selects relevant material deliberately toshow off his master in the best possible light. It adopts a high moral tone, is strongly partisannot to say chauvinistic, especially in its comments on the French, while attachment to la nacionbreton permeates the whole work.15

Many of these characteristics are displayed on a much grander historical canvas in the caseof the Anonymous. His is a large work: two main manuscript copies of a lost original survive, inone of which the chronicle fills 143 folios, in the other 147. A modern edition, of which

11 Cf. note 9 for a partial edition; the most detailed discussion remains Paul de Berthou, ‘Introduction a la Chronique

de Saint-Brieuc’ and ‘Analyse sommaire et critique de la Chronique de Saint-Brieuc’, Bulletin archeologique de l’As-sociation bretonne, xviii (1900), 67e84 and xix (1901), 3e110.

12 Guillaume de Saint-Andre, Le Bon Jehan & Le Jeu des Echecs, XIVe siecle. Chronique de l’Etat breton, Texte etabli,

traduit, presente et annote par Jean-Michel Cauneau and Dominique Philippe (Rennes, 2005), with a comprehensive

discussion of problems surrounding Saint-Andre’s identification and the nature of his work, replaces earlier and partial

editions: C’est le Libvre du bon Jehan, duc de Bretaigne, ed. E. Charriere as an appendix to his Chronique de Bertrand

du Guesclin, 2 vols (Paris, 1839), vol. 2, 421e560, itself replacing the edition which appeared in Dom Gui-Alexis Lo-

bineau, Histoire de Bretagne, 2 vols (Paris, 1707), vol. 2, 693e750, reprinted in Dom Pierre-Hyacinthe Morice, Preuvespour servir a l’histoire ecclesiastique et civile de Bretagne [henceforward Preuves], 3 vols (Paris, 1742e46), vol. 2,

305e63.13 Michael Jones, ‘A prince and his biographer: John IV, duke of Brittany (1364e99) and Guillaume de Saint-Andre’,

in: England and the continent in the middle ages. Studies in memory of Andrew Martindale, ed. John Mitchell with Mat-

thew Morton (Harlaxton Medieval Studies, VIII, Stamford, 2000), 203e17, an English version of ‘Un prince et son

biographe: Jean IV, duc de Bretagne (1364e1399) et Guillaume de Saint-Andre’, in: Les princes et l’histoire du

XIVe au XVIIIe siecle, ed. Chantal Grell, Werner Paravicini and Jurgen Voss (Pariser Historische Studien, Bd 47, Paris,

1999), 178e92.14 Michael Jones, ‘Politics, sanctity and the Breton state: the case of the Blessed Charles de Blois, duke of Brittany

(d. 1364)’, in: The medieval state. Essays presented to James Campbell, ed. J.R. Maddicott and D.M. Palliser (London,

2000), 215e32 [reprinted in my collected essays Between France and England. Politics, power and society in latemedieval Brittany (Aldershot and Burlington VT., 2003), ch. VI].

15 Saint-Andre’s work was the starting point for Michael Jones, ‘‘‘Mon pais et ma nation’’: Breton identity in the four-

teenth century’, in: War, literature and politics in the late Middle Ages, ed. C.T. Allmand (Liverpool, 1976), 144e68.

Cauneau and Philippe’s introduction to their new edition also examines Saint-Andre’s portrait of John IV in detail in the

light of ‘la naissance de l’Etat breton’ (59e88).


regrettably only a first volume appeared in 1972 and no successor is imminently forthcoming,contained only about a fifth of what survives,16 the edition reaching f. 33r in the first, and f. 36rin the second manuscript.17 It nevertheless runs to 220 pages of Latin text and facing Frenchtranslation, even though it only brings the story of Brittany down to the seventh century AD.Le Baud’s notes, probably from the lost original, suggest that the two copyists may alsohave omitted some material.18 I calculate that extracts from the Chronicon, first published inthe eighteenth century, run to approximately 45,000 words.19 The Chronicon is thus ambitiousin conception; moreover what we have is manifestly unfinished. Much of the account of eventsafter 1400, for example, is confused and incomplete; the latter sections of the chronicle oftenprovide little more than the raw materials for a more polished account that the author never gotround to writing, themes to which we will return. As earlier scholars have recognised, many ofthe documents cited by him (and upwards of 50 of them can be easily identified) were obvi-ously drawn from the ducal archives.20 Naturally attempts have been made to search for hisidentity amongst Breton chancery clerks. Indeed, who the Anonymous was, what his intentionsand achievements were, are principal concerns here. But I should like to approach them by firstlooking at the more general issue of the keeping of ducal records around the time that the authorof the Chronicon wrote before coming back to a closer examination of the contents of his workand what it contributed specifically to a burgeoning Montfortist historiography.

The beginnings of the Breton Tresor des chartes

Brittany was rather slow in comparison with some other princely administrations in organ-ising a Tresor des chartes des ducs.21 The model and language is characteristically that pro-vided by the crown itself, as it did for most important late medieval Breton administrativedevelopments. The Capetians had begun to keep and inventory charters systematically after

16 See n. 9 above.17 Respectively Paris, BnF, MSS latin 6003 and 9888 (this last used by Lobineau and Morice for their editions).18 AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 F 1003, passim; a detailed 8-page typescript note by Gwenael Le Duc attached to a copy of the

inventory of the Serie 1 F in the Salle de Lecture, Rennes, dated 9 May 1995, summarising the contents of this man-

uscript, identifies probable borrowings by Le Baud from the Chronicon as well as other sources. Most of the extracts

from the Chronicon come from xx 360e488 of de Berthou’s ‘Analyse’ (above n. 11) but not necessarily in the same

order; see also Le Duc’s article and the appendices in St-Mathieu de Fine-Terre, ed. Tanguy and Cloıtre, 313e16 cited

above n. 10.19 Lobineau, Histoire, vol. 2, 833e92 and Preuves, vol. 1, 7e102. Morice explained reasons for omitting parts of the

texts thus: Le jugement que l’Auteur porte lui-meme de son Ouvrage, nous apprend avec quelle precaution il faut le lire.

Il commence d’abord par nous donner la substance de l’histoire de Geoffroi de Montmouth; lorsque cet Auteur lui man-

que, il compile les Ecrivains Bretons & Francois sans ordre & sans aucun discernement. Il a insere dans sa Compilation

plusieurs Legendes des Saints & un grande nombre d’Actes, dont quelques-uns sont evidemment faux. Pour eviter les

redites, nous avons cru devoir supprimer ici tout ce qui n’est pas de l’essence d’une Chronique, & placer ailleurs les

Actes qui meritent attention. As a consequence, both he and Lobineau before him omitted passages which, as will

be shown below (pp. 17e19), are important for establishing the possible authorship and date of the Chronicon.20 At least 34 charters, five papal bulls and a letter from some Cardinals were recognised by B.-A. Pocquet du Haut-

Jusse, ‘La derniere phase de la vie de Du Guesclin. L’affaire de Bretagne’, Bibliotheque de l’ecole des chartes [hencefor-

ward BEC], cxxv (1967), 144e5.21 I am indebted to an unpublished paper of Kathleen Daly, ‘Archives and archivists in France and the Burgundian

dominions in the fifteenth century’ for a number of references in the following discussion of tresors des chartes. Fuller

bibliographical references to princely tresors des chartes mentioned here will also be found in the Introduction to my

forthcoming edition cited in n. 31.


the loss of the majority of their earliest records in 1194 when Philip Augustus, who had takenthem along in his baggage train, was ambushed by Plantagenet forces at Freteval.22 In additionto the registers that were compiled in the next few years, with copies of as many of thelost documents as possible, the expanding usage of written records for all aspects of gov-ernment around 1200, also encouraged the establishment of a permanent home for royalrecords. This was soon located in the Sainte-Chapelle where they remained until theend of the Ancien Regime, and it was the presence of these littere reposite in almariisdomini regis (c.1269) or archivium litterarum et privilegiorum desuper thesaurum capelleregalis Parisiensis palatii existens (1318), alongside other royal treasures, that eventuallyled to their repository itself being called the tresor des chartes by the 1330s at thelatest.23

From an early point the royal records were housed in cupboards (archa, almaria, armoires)in boxes or drawers (scrinia, capsae, coffres, layettes) that were re-classified on several occa-sions as the contents grew in quantity and complexity of origin and subject. During the keep-ership of Pierre Julien, garde des privileges du roi from 1325e33, the layettes were firstidentified by an alphabetical code.24 This practice had already been applied in 1269 whenthe royal archives of Languedoc were classified, and it was adopted by many other princelyarchives thereafter, including in the Tresor des chartes des ducs de Bretagne, though not beforethe early sixteenth century.25 When I first worked in the departmental archives at Nantes in1964, documents were still produced in the reading room in the fine oak and chestnut boxes,cassettes, that had been made for them at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when theywere given a letter according to their position in the Tresor’s Armoires beginning with ArmoireA, cassette A, and between 1566 and 1579 most individual documents were given a number,thus AA 1, AA 2 etc.26 Earlier classification systems at Nantes remain more difficult to fathomas we shall see shortly.

Like the royal records, some of the earliest from the Burgundian Tresor also date from thelate twelfth century, though the office itself only took shape over the next two centuries asa number of separate places of deposit were established for the different parts of the duke’s do-mains, a tradition that would continue into the Valois period, with no single repository ever

22 A magisterial account is provided by Henri-Francois Delaborde, ‘Etude sur la constitution du Tresor des Chartes et

sur les Origines de la Serie des Sacs dite aujourd’hui Supplement du Tresor des Chartes’, in: Layettes du Tresor des

Chartes [henceforward Layettes], ed. A. Teulet et al., 5 vols (Paris, 1863e1909), vol. 5, ieccxxiv.23 Layettes, vol. 5, xxiii.24 Layettes, vol. 5, lxxvelxxix.25 Henri de Berranger, Guide des Archives de la Loire-Atlantique, t. 1, Series A a H (Nantes, 1962), 74; Inventaire

sommaire des Archives Departementales anterieurs a 1790, Loire-Inferieure, Serie E, ed. Leon Maıtre (Nantes,

1879), 1e102, liasses E 1eE 248 for the current contents of the Tresor with documents ranging from 1030e1514, to-

gether with later inventories and finding aids. The earliest mention of ‘armoires’ in the Tresor at Nantes appears to be in

a note scribbled at the end of Herve Le Grant’s inventory of 1395: ‘En ceste armoire a en trois poches .’ (AD Loire-

Atlantique, E 238, unfoliated last half page).26 Raoul Grimaud, seigneur de Proce, was responsible for the letters in 1509e10 (see the incomplete inventory in

AD Loire-Atlantique, E 242) and Rene de Bourgneuf, seigneur du Cuce, Nicolas Blanchet and Pierre Gautier be-

tween 1566e79 for the numbers, which are still of immense value for identifying both surviving documents at Nantes

and from the Tresor but now in other repositories or those published (for example in Lobineau, Histoire and Preuves)

but subsequently lost (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 243, 397 folios, with marginal annotations by Leon Maıtre to the

liasses in serie E at Nantes where originals may currently be found). AA 1 (now in AD Loire-Atlantique, E 105)

is a letter of Dauphin Charles granting various lordships to Richard de Bretagne, younger brother of John V, 8

May 1421.


gaining a monopoly for keeping ducal records.27 But fragmentary inventories of the Tresor deschartes at Dijon survive from as early as 1280 and 1304, and by the mid fourteenth century itsphysical location and organisation with use of arches or coffers and cupboards containing in-dividual drawers or boxes, identified by letters, in which documents were kept had taken onclassic form. The first known inventory of the archives of the Dauphins of the Viennois datesfrom 1277; the counts of Artois had repositories in the castles of Arras and Hesdin by theearly fourteenth century; the financial records of the counts of Forez were carefully organisedas early as 1317; the lords of Beaujeu are known to have deposited their archives with thecanons of Beaujeu before 1339, and other rulers made similar use of ecclesiasticallocations.28

Whether the dukes of Brittany had done so at any stage before the late fourteenth century re-mains uncertain since there are few indications of where they deposited their records before thereis mention in 1395 of the Tresor itself in the Tour Neuve de Nantes, so-called since its constructionin the early thirteenth century although it was extensively rebuilt by John IV.29 It is probable thatrecords had already been kept there for several generations. In any event, the Tresor would remainthere until the Revolution, when by accident rather than design, it survived the attentions of theCommission du triage virtually unscathed, passing subsequently into public keeping in the Ar-chives departementales de la Loire-Inferieure (now Loire-Atlantique), so that most of the docu-ments I am concerned with have a continuously traceable history of over 600 years.30

It was in June 1395 that Mr Herve Le Grant, the first known keeper ( garde) of the Bretonducal archives, took responsibility for a long list des lettres de Monseignour le duc deBretaingne . en la Thesaurerie de la Tourneuve which were detailed in an inventory thathe carefully drew up on that occasion.31 An impressive volume, some 397 x 295 mm in size,bound in a parchment cover, consisting originally of 88 paper folios, 79 of which are nowused for entries, it is generously set out at an average of five or six entries per page withwide margins and spacing between them (Fig. 1). It is clearly a fair copy, written up in a shortperiod of time in a uniform hand, with only a few later alterations or additions, most apparentlyin the same hand, almost certainly that of Herve Le Grant himself. In the edition I have pre-pared I number 838 articles.32 After the first one (Premier, la confirmacion de la premierepaix de Bretaingne . d Charles V’s confirmation of the first treaty of Guerande (1365) which

27 Jean Richard, ‘Les archives et les archivistes des ducs de Bourgogne dans le ressort de la Chambre des Comptes de

Dijon’, BEC, cv (1944), 123e69 is the authoritative guide.28 Daly, ‘Archives and Archivists’, passim.29 In addition to the references in n. 25 above, the most comprehensive discussion of early ducal archives is in Lettres

et mandements de Jean V, duc de Bretagne [henceforward Lettres de Jean V], ed. Rene Blanchard, 5 vols (Nantes,

1889e95), vol 1, iii and following.30 Hidden behind barrels of money in the castle at Nantes, the Tresor was fortuitously spared when no one could be

bothered to move them for the Commission du triage (Berranger, Guide des Archives, 4); the fate of the archives of the

Chambre des comptes was, however, very different (Berranger, Guide des Archives, 22 and Michael Jones, ‘Membra

disjecta of the Breton Chambre des comptes in the late middle ages: treasures revisited and rediscovered’, in: War, gov-ernment and power in late medieval France, ed. Christopher Allmand (Liverpool, 2000), 209e20).

31 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 238; for which see also Claire Lagadec, ‘Transcription et etude d’un inventaire d’archives

de Bretagne XIVeeXVe siecles’, Travail d’etude et de recherche en Histoire Medievale, sous la direction de Monsieur

Kerherve (Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, annee 1997e98), a useful preliminary study, providing an Intro-

duction and full transcript, but not attempting to identify the items listed nor provide a serious critical apparatus, for

which see Le Premier Inventaire du Tresor des chartes des ducs de Bretagne (1395), ed. Michael Jones (Bannalec,

2007).32 Blanchard numbers 839 articles (Lettres de Jean V, vol. 1, iv).


concluded the Breton civil war that began in 1341),33 all the others are introduced by the worditem, though some entries mention more than one letter at a time. Thus the inventory lists some906 individual documents.34 But in comparison with contemporary royal inventories, it lackssophistication and practical use was not easy.

Of the documents it analyses, for instance, only about a fifth are dated (though it has been pos-sible to establish that the rest range from 1220e1395),35 nor are they identified by any letter ornumber. Users would normally depend on a combined description of a document’s diplomatic dthe form of letters, mode of sealing, colour of wax and so on d and its endorsement, usually

Fig. 1. The opening folio of the 1395 inventory (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 238 f. 15, reproduced by kind permission).

33 cf. for the original see AD Loire-Atlantique, E 6 no. 3, May 1366¼ Preuves, vol. 1, 1607e08.34 Lagadec, ‘Transcription’ 32 and 57, numbering each of them separately in her transcription.35 The earliest is the record of an inquiry by the seneschal of Poitou into the duke’s rights to levy customs on the Loire,

24 May 1220 (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 238 f. 18v, no. 200 in my forthcoming edition: Item, une lettre o pluseurs seaux

en coues doubles o cire jaune et un seel en cire verte ou a II aigles et flordelis, contenant en la subscription: Que le duc

de Bretaingne peut faire ses bans comme il veult en Loyre, the original of which is ibid., E 126 no. 1¼ Preuves, vol. 1,

846e7).


given verbatim in the inventory, in order to recognise an original for which they might have beenlooking.36 These endorsements normally summarising accurately the content or purpose of thedocument, appear to be chiefly by Herve Le Grant himself. They tally closely with those foundon a high proportion of surviving originals in the current tresor des chartes at Nantes. They arealso sometimes duplicated by other notes added by his successors in the course of the fifteenthcentury when new inventories were made or the ducal archive checked, though some also hintat earlier archival activity before Herve’s day.37 This and the presence of documents datingback to the early thirteenth century in Herve’s inventory show that there is a long pre-history ofthe tresor des chartes des ducs de Bretagne that is largely hidden from us. It is also clear from otherearly originals now surviving at Nantes, often closely associated or contemporary with documentslisted in 1395, and the unfinished state of Herve’s inventory, which breaks off without any formalconclusion, that substantial and important as his inventory is, what we have is only a partial listingof the ducal archives at the end of John IV’s reign.38 We will come back to the inventory’s contentsbut some account of Herve’s other archival activities and career is relevant first.

Mr Herve Le Grant

He himself summarised this very laconically in about 1411 when giving testimony in a disputeover the exercise of banvin by the bishop of Nantes.39 Claiming then to be 51 years of age, thusborn around 1360, he said that he had arrived in Nantes some 38 years previously when he cameto live with his uncle, Pierre Gravillon, captain of the episcopal castle or manor of Suce, just to thenorth of the city, then held by Bishop Simon de Langres. Le Grant also stated that he spent muchtime with Mr Geoffroi Le Fevre, a prominent notary, who served successive bishops of Nantes forover 40 years as well as enjoying the favour of John IV from an early point of his reign.40 We maysafely assume that it was from Le Fevre that Herve received much of his own practical training asa public notary. Initially to do so he may not even have had to leave Suce since some notarial instru-ments drawn up there by Le Fevre survive, the earliest just as the Breton civil war began in earnest in1342.41 But other evidence suggests Herve acquired more formal qualifications too; his notarial

36 See previous note for a good example.37 My edition identifies most of Herve Le Grant’s endorsements on surviving originals, though some have been deliber-

ately erased by later archivists and others have faded or been overwritten and are thus frequently illegible. Blanchard first

discussed the significance of documents bearing an endorsement Registrata or simply an initial R (Lettres de Jean V, vol. 1,

xcviiiexcvix) and I did the same in my Recueil des actes de Jean IV, duc de Bretagne [henceforward Recueil Jean IV], 3 vols

(Paris and Bannalec, 1980e2001), vol. 1, 34, as evidence for the general practice of registration in the Breton chancery. I

now believe that in many instances, these dorsal notes refer to the transcription of particular documents into formularies by

Herve Le Grant himself rather than a general practice for documents issuing from the chancery, a matter confused by the

introduction at virtually the same point in 1404 of chancery registers: see also below and n. 76.38 This will be become even clearer with the annotation to my edition of the 1395 inventory.39 AD Loire-Atlantique, G 1, seventeenth-century, extracts from the lost original of the inquiry, 23e4.40 Recueil Jean IV, vol. 1, 38 for some details on Le Fevre’s career.41 AD Loire-Atlantique, G 117 no. 41, letters of Olivier Salhaddin, bishop of Nantes, drawn up by Le Fevre, 12 May

1342. Le Fevre and Le Grant jointly drew up a vidimus of an obligation of Joan, princess of Wales, acknowledging

a debt to John IV, on 26 April 1382 (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 209 no. 20). One of Le Fevre’s most impressive vidimusesis of the second treaty of Guerande, 4 April 1381 (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 92 no. 6¼ Preuves, vol. 2, 301e2). Orig-

inally from the diocese of St-Pol de Leon, he latterly enjoyed a canonry at Nantes and was present when the chapter

swore to uphold the Guerande treaty he had written out (Paris, Archives Nationales [henceforward AN], J 242 no. 58,18

26 June 1381) and on 25 March 1383 he was present when the duke as lord of Rays performed homage to the bishop of

Nantes (Preuves, vol. 2, 446e8).


signum reveals that his original birthplace was in the diocese of Cornouaille (Quimper) in Breton-speaking Brittany: Ego Herveus le Grant Corisopitensis diocesis publicus auctoritate apostolicaet imperiali notarius ..42 And although the title Mr was sometimes still appropriated by a non-graduate, the presence of Herveus Magnus from Cornouaille as a scholar in canon law at the Univer-sity of Angers in 1378 seems sufficient proof that Herve was indeed a qualified university lawyer evenif he soon took up private practice as a notary.43

The moment was propitious; in August 1379 John IV returned from six years exile inEngland to a cordial welcome from most of his former domestic enemies worried thatCharles V’s decision to annexe the duchy to the royal demesne would lead to a diminutionof their own and the duchy’s privileges.44 For an ambitious young Breton with Herve’s tal-ents and qualifications, a bright future beckoned in helping John IV pick up the threads ofgovernment. He was certainly at hand in Vannes in late September 1379 to draw up an im-portant instrument recording favours accorded to the new chancellor of Brittany, Jean I, vi-comte de Rohan, even if the document’s purpose was to reserve the duke’s position andrecord that he had been forced to make various concessions to Rohan for fear of the useof force against him at a critical point in re-establishing ducal authority.45 Entrusting knowl-edge of such a sensitive political matter to a young notary like Le Grant may have been risky,but it was only the beginning of a long career in ducal service, where on many subsequentoccasions he would be privy to the most important secrets of the Montfort family and deviousworkings of the ducal administration. In some instances, he carried out these notarial dutiesin conjunction with Guillaume de Saint-Andre, whose verse-biography of John IV wasbriefly mentioned above. It was Le Grant and Saint-Andre, for example, who drew up a long pro-testation by the duke against his main domestic enemy, Olivier, lord of Clisson and Constable ofFrance, for presentation to royal envoys in December 1387, and in January 1389, together witha third notary with whom Le Grant also frequently worked, Pierre d’Orenge, they drew up theproces-verbal of an important council meeting held in the Dominican convent at Nantes that dis-cussed further ducal complaints against Clisson and his son-in-law, Jean, comte de Penthievre.46

During most of Herve’s career Nantes was his home; an instrument was recorded under thecontracts seal of the town at his own house on 7 March 1383,47 to be followed by many others

42 For the signa of Le Grant and Saint-Andre see Michael Jones, ‘Notaries and notarial practice in medieval Brittany’,

in: Notariado publico y documento privado: de los origenes al siglo XIV, Actas del VII Congreso Internacional de Dip-

lomatica, ed. J. Trenchs Odena, 2 vols (Valencia, 1989), vol. 2, 773e815 [reprinted in Between France and England, ch.

VIII], plate 4.43 Les statuts et privileges des universites francaises depuis leur fondation jusqu’en 1789, ed. Marcel Fournier, 3 vols

(Paris, 1890e20), vol. 3, no. 1897 no. 139 (511).44 Michael Jones, Ducal Brittany, 1364e1399 (Oxford, 1970), 86 and following.45 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 154 no. 10¼ Preuves, vol. 2, 231e2 and Recueil Jean IV, vol. 1, no. 322; the duke’s prac-

tice of protesting in notarial form against decisions which he disagreed with or had been forced into through fear, was

first seriously discussed in B.-A. Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Les papes et les ducs de Bretagne, 2 vols (Paris and Rome,

1928), vol. 1, 403e4; see also Recueil Jean IV, vol. 1, 30 and Jones, ‘Notaries’, 793e4.46 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 166 no. 4¼ Preuves, vol. 2, 547e8 and Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2, no. 646 (19 Dec. 1387); E 166

no. 8¼ Preuves, vol. 2, 57 and Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2, no. 683. John Bell Henneman, Olivier de Clisson and Political Society

under Charles V and Charles VI (Philadelphia, 1996), 120 and following for these events. Le Grant and d’Orenge drew up

jointly an instrument recording the bishop of Nantes’ attestation of the letters of mutual donation which John IVand Jeanne

de Navarre exchanged on 15 February 1388 (AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 2 no. 1¼ Preuves, vol. 2, 547e8).47 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 112 no. 12, 7 March 1383, containing a vidimus of 11 January 1367 of letters of Charles V, 5

January 1367, revoking the assignation of John IV to appear before the Parlement de Paris to answer an appeal of Bo-

nabe, seigneur de Rouge.


dated either there or in the house of his father-in-law, Jacquet Mauleon, whose daughter, Guil-lemette, he had married.48 This brought him important social connections amongst the city’sbourgeoisie as well as amongst other families who provided many recruits to the ducal chan-cery and Chambre des comptes in a period of rapid expansion. Jacquet’s probable nephew, JeanMauleon, for instance, was one of the most important financial advisers of John V (1399e1442), becoming the first of his tresoriers de l’epargne.49 Jacquet himself, or a homonym,had supplied John IV’s household with goods on numerous occasions and was still owed211 l. in 1400 by the late duke and his duchess; the Rohan family were also in his debt asthe wills of Vicomte Jean I and his wife each reveal.50 Herve’s own successor as tresorier etgarde des chartes in 1416 was a near relative, Pierre Piedru, son of another rich Nantais bour-geois, Guillaume Piedru, and Jeanne Mauleon, in all likelihood sister of the tresorier del’epargne.51

Other family connections could be pursued, but to return to Herve’s own career: in the 1380she was one of the most active notaries in ducal employment, not only drawing up many originalinstruments, some of them of the utmost importance in advancing the duke’s various policies orprotecting his rights. These, for instance, included a long series of documents which Hervedrafted over an exchange of lands between John IV and Jeanne Chabot, dame de Rays, whowas forced into conceding her castellanies in the Pays de Retz, strategically placed to the southof Nantes where the dukes had only limited possessions, for lands in Cornouaille, of lesser mil-itary value and economic potential.52 There were instruments relating to the duke’s rights as

48 The lease of a house en le grant rue de la Chaucee to Herve and Guillemette, daughter of Jacquet Mauleon, in

1412 (AD Loire-Atlantique, B 1110) and Herve’s establishment two anniversaries for himself and his wife, in the

cathedral of Nantes to be celebrated on 21 March and 20 September respectively after the ‘Livre des anniversaires’,

were first indicated by Blanchard in Lettres de Jean V, vol. 1, xc. She even seems to have assisted her husband in his

official tasks: when original letters of John V, 14 January 1405, discharging Guy XII, lord of Laval from his position

as the duke’s guardian (curateur) were later delived to the Tresor des chartes for safe-keeping, they were interestingly

endorsed: Recueu par mestre Herve Le Grant de Jehan Mauleon le XXVIIIe jour d’avrill l’an mil CCCC et cinq pre-sens Jehan Halouart, Estienne Gourbin et Guillemete Mauleon, femme dud. mestre Herve . (AD Loire-Atlantique, E

5 no. 4).49 Jean Kerherve, ‘Jean Mauleon, tresorier de l’Epargne. Une carriere au service de l’Etat breton’, in: Actes du 107e

Congres national ., Questions d’histoire de Bretagne, 161e84. There is, however, a slight ambiguity over the identity

of Jacquet: when Le Grant delivered instruments in his house, he is usually described as Jacquet Mauleon clericus rather

than bourgeois or merchant (e.g. AD Cotes-d’Armor, A 89 no. 8, 8 April 1391 and AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 5 no. 1b, 2

July 1391), as he is at Le Grant’s own house on 7 September 1384 when Herve delivered a copy of letters of John of

Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, 1 December 1377, promising that Brest castle would eventually be returned to John IV by the

English (AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 12 no. 4). Since Kerherve has shown that a Jacquet Mauleon was delivering goods to

the ducal wardrobe as early as 1387 there may be a question of homonymy (see also next note).50 Kerherve, ‘Jean Mauleon’, 176 n. 70 after AD Loire-Atlantique B 1890 and E 204 no. 9 (debts of John IV); Preuves,

vol. 2, 658 and 716e21 (Rohans). Since the references to Jacquet Mauleon as a clerk chiefly date from the 1380s and

early 1390s, it may have been the case that his business interests developed to such an extent that he gave up his clerical

work.51 Kerherve, ‘Jean Mauleon’, 176 n. 71.52 Among these is one of the largest instruments which I have seen: AD Loire-Atlantique, E 172 no. 14, 17 May

1383, recounting a certification by Alain du Bois, proctor of Jeanne de Rays, taking possession of the castellanies

of Chateaulin, Rosporden and Fouenant; he also drew up another very large instrument for John IV’s taking pos-

session of the castellany of Rays between 24 March and 6 April 1383, with various additional letters of commis-

sion, now known from a vidimus drawn up by Jean de Rippa, 17 December 1394 (AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 15 no. 4).

Cartulaire des sires de Rays, ed. Rene Blanchard, 2 vols (Archives historiques du Poitou, xxviii and xxx, Poitiers,

1899e1900), vol. 1, xxxiii and civecvii for John IV’s eventually unsuccessful attempt to acquire Jeanne Chabot’s

lands.


lord of Rays during the ceremonial first entry of the bishop of Nantes into his see53 or John’sexercise of regale at the succession of Thibaud de Malestroit as bishop of Cornouaille in1384.54 But also, and here we have an indication of Herve’s future archival mission, his copyingout of important documents relating to the duke’s historic relationship with the crown for im-mediate use or future reference. In April 1384, for instance, Herve produced a vidimus ofa 1324 vidimus by the provost of Paris of letters of Charles IV, collating letters of Philip IVof February 1297 and of Philip V of March 1317, recognising that appeals from Breton courtscould only be taken to the Parlement de Paris in two cases, false judgement and denial of jus-tice.55 Many other documents relating to this critical issue would later be listed in his owninventory.56

By 1385 Herve was a ducal secretary;57 he had accompanied John IV when he went oncampaign to Flanders in August 1383 and later to Paris,58 and was present outside Brittanyon several occasions to record other important diplomatic events like the negotiations heldat Tours under the aegis of Charles VI in January 139259 and at Angers and Paris in theautumn of 1394 for a later settlement with Clisson and Penthievre being brokered by Philip,duke of Burgundy.60 He was also sent on other missions, among the most significant ofwhich was an embassy to England in May 1384 in which he recorded interviews withJohn of Gaunt and other members of Richard II’s council as well as the king’s repliesto questions raised by the embassy.61 There was a further embassy to England in July1391.62 By the mid 1390s, however, Herve appears to have been devoting an increasingamount of his time to re-organising the ducal archives. Barthelmy-Amedee Pocquet duHaut-Jusse, one of the most distinguished twentieth-century Breton historians states categor-ically that Herve was appointed tresorier et garde des chartes du duche on 5 June 1395,

53 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 88 no. 7 (cf. Preuves, vol. 2, 439e41).54 Instrument, Nantes, 13 March 1384, relating the duke’s acceptance of Thibaud’s fealty, known now from a copy of

1405 (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 236 f. 30v). There had been considerable dispute over John IV’s exercise of regale, that is

enjoyment of the temporalities, during the vacancy following the death of Geoffroi Le Marhec, bishop of Cornouaille, in

1383. Ducal and episcopal officers had clashed violently, as is revealed by documents listed in Herve’s 1395 inventory,

now lost (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 238 f. 33ve34v, nos. 336e49 in my edition). Despite his fealty, by 1 September Thi-

baud acknowledged owing a fine of 1500 l. for offences against the duke (AD Loire-Atlantique, B 12838/1 f. 105v no.

588). These events are not discussed in Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Les papes nor in the Histoire de Quimper, ed. Jean Ker-

herve (Toulouse, 1994), unlike a similar dispute in 1400.55 AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 5 no. 1d, 7 April 1384, drawn up with Guillaume Morin.56 Cf. AD Loire-Atlantique, E 238 f. 2r, nos 14 and 17, 5r, no. 48 and 8r, no. 88. The concession over the two cases

had first been conferred in Philip IV’s letters granting John II the status of peer of France, September 1297 (AD

Loire-Atlantique, E 103 no. 4¼ Preuves, vol. 1, 1122e33, listed in Herve’s inventory, E 238 f. 1v, no. 8).57 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 24 no. 5¼ Preuves, vol. 2, 496e8 and Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2, no. 559 (as witness to John

IV’s will, 21 October 1385).58 For letters of John IV written by Herve Le Grant at Montfort l’Amaury, 19 August 1383, see AN, J 243 no. 48

and for other written at Paris on 6 November 1383, AN, J 243 no. 674 (¼ Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2, nos 459 and 465).

Le Grant also wrote a quittance of the duke for Charles VI on 1 February 1384 (BnF, MS francais 20590 no.

28¼ Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2, no. 482) which has no place of issue although this was also almost certainly at Paris.59 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 8 nos 2 (15 January 1392) and 3 (24 Jan. 1392), E 110 no. 31 (26 Jan. 1392), and E 166 nos

8 (15 Jan. 1392), 11 and 15 (both 26 Jan. 1392).60 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 167 no. 4 (15 Dec. 1394); cf. Preuves, vol. 2, 641e2.61 Two identical originals survive: AD Loire-Atlantique, E 115 no. 8 and AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 12 no. 9¼ Preuves,

vol. 2, 450e6.62 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 112 no. 18 and E 115 no. 7, 31 July 1391,¼ Preuves, vol. 2, 576 and Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2,

no. 785, for the original commissions for the envoys.


though without giving a precise reference.63 I cannot confirm this exact date, though as hisinventory makes plain, Herve was certainly acting in that capacity during June.64 He was tohold the post until ordered to release it to his probable nephew, Pierre Piedru, on 15 Sep-tember 1416.65

In the years to 1407, there was a frenzy of activity, not simply by Herve himself, but by a wholeequipe of chancery clerks under his guidance, in collecting, ordering and transcribing documents al-ready in the ducal archives. Some work was even paid for personally by Herve: a copy made in Feb-ruary 1396 by Jean de Rippa of the instrument which Herve first drew up in connection with theembassy to England in 1384 on which he had served is endorsed: Copie faite par maistre Herve leGrant a ses propres despens . with the instruction Soit porte a la tresorerie.66 Similar instructionssurvive on other documents like one of 16 May 1399 endorsed: Doyt estre et a portee a mestre Herve67

or one of 2 May 1405: Ici sont les copies et memoires que Mareschee a aportees de France et quellesfurent baillees a Maistre Herve le Grant en garde par Jahan le Breton, secretaire, a Nantes la Vaille dePasques de l’an 1405,68 in effect yet further copies of an ordonnance of Charles VI of 26 January 1392relating to the accord reached between John IVand Jean, comte de Penthievre at Tours. When a doc-ument of 1308 about the seizure of the goods of the Templars in Brittany was discovered in the Fran-ciscan convent at Nantes, it too was baillees a Maistre Herve le Grant.69 In the interim, he acquiredcopies of other key documents which the ducal archives had failed to preserve like John I’s ordinanceof March 1240 expelling the Jews from Brittany, of which Le Grant prepared a vidimus after an originalproduced by the abbot of Sainte-Croix de Quimperle when John IV visited the abbey in June 1397.70

In the mid fifteenth century, this vidimus was itself copied into a register de plussours bullesapostoliques tant de recommendacions d’evesques promeuz en Bretaigne par les papes qued’autres choses kept in the chancery and sometimes incorrectly attributed to Herve Le Grant.71

But it was a practice that Herve himself had vigorously championed. Many documents listed in

63 Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, ‘La derniere phase’, 145.64 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 238 f. 1r, C’est l’inventoire des lettres de Monseignour le duc de Bretaingne baillees en

garde de Maistre Herve le Grant en la Thesaurerie de la Tourneuve de Nantes ou moys de Juign l’an mil troiscens qua-trevigns et quinze.

65 Lettres de Jean V, vol. 2, nos 1221e2 after mentions of John V’s now lost letters in later inventories of 1430 (AD

Loire-Atlantique, E 239 f. 20) and 1450 (E 240, 9e cahier, f. 1).66 AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 12 no. 9, 10 February 1396.67 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 172 no. 18, 16 May 1399, ratification by Jeanne Chabot, dame de Rays, of an agreement

with John IV, leading to the restitution of her seigneury. A vidimus of the sentence delivered against the duke, with his

ratification, on 28 May 1399 carries the endorsements: Me que G. Coglais a porte avecques lui l’original et la doit ra-porter a Herve and Le Vidimus du treite d’entre le duc et la dame de Rais (AD Loire-Atlantique, E172 no 20).

68 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 166 no. 16, vidimus of the king’s letters stating that John IV was obliged to deliver rents

worth 10,000 l. to Jean, comte de Penthievre, as part of the settlement.69 Preuves, vol. 1, 1216.70 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 126 no. 2, 10 June 1397 at Quimperle; for John I’s original letters see the facsimile and

translation into French in Arthur de La Borderie and Barthelemy Pocquet, Histoire de Bretagne, 6 vols (Paris and

St-Brieuc, 1896e1914), vol. 3, 337e8. For the original, see AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 F 1109 (¼ Preuves, vol. 1,

914e15); various cartulary copies survive including that in Le cartulaire de la seigneurie de Fougeres, ed. Jacques Au-

berge (Rennes, 1913), 154e6.71 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 55 f. 40ve42v. As a note on a preliminary folio by La Borderie states, the original register

had 148 folios, the last of which is still numbered VIIXX VIII, and it currently contains 85 documents ranging from

1240e1456. Most of those pre-1395, like John I’s banishment of the Jews, can be found listed in Herve’s inventory.

Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, ‘La derniere phase’, 145 erroneously attributes it to Le Grant, but the hand is mid fifteenth-

century and the sequence in which post-1416 documents juxtapose earlier ones shows that he cannot have been the final

compiler even if his work contributed to preserving and ordering many of the documents contained in the register.


his inventory were themselves copied at his behest into formularies, of which at least two havealso fortunately survived. The most significant for modern historians of medieval Brittany isperhaps the earliest manuscript copy of the Livre des Ostz, a record of the military obligationsowed by ducal vassals, compiled at a muster at Ploermel in August 1294 and providing a com-prehensive snapshot of the leading nobility of the day.72 This small quarto volume also containsthe form of homage allegedly rendered by John IV to Charles V in 1366, significantly glossed ina later medieval hand as ‘simple homage’,73 and other documents to which I shall return, but wecan note here that they are also all exploited by the author of the Chronicon Briocense.

There is also an impressive folio volume, still bound in similar red leather morocco withwooden boards as the Livre des Ostz, but containing 135 charters, letters and other documentsdating between 1220 and 1407.74 The coincidence of the starting date with that of documents inHerve’s 1395 inventory is scarcely accidental. As one recent commentator writes, Herve LeGrant ne s’interesse qu’aux actes qui peuvent servir a affirmer les pouvoirs de son prince.75

This is well borne out in the formulary where the documents concern relations between thedukes and their sovereigns, the kings of France, the acquisition of ducal demesne and manyother matters relating to relations with their vassals and subjects and their respective rights.Of the documents in the 1407 formulary, approximately 104 predate Herve’s inventory of1395, where all but a handful of the originals are listed. Some of these latter bear endorsementsscripta or registrata est, occasionally with Herve’s own name, Scripta est, Herveus or simplythe initials ‘H’ or ‘R’, indicating that they had been copied into this or another register.76 Otheroriginals, once copied, may have been destroyed, a practice which often occurred after the

72 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 132 f. 6re17v; Frederic Morvan, ‘Le Livre des Ostz (1294). Un eclairage sur les rapports du

duc et la noblesse a la fin du XIIIe siecle’, in: Noblesses de Bretagne du Moyen Age a nos jours, ed. Jean Kerherve

(Rennes, 1999), 37e88 for a recent edition and commentary. This small volume of 22 folios, 160 x 230 mm., with

some rubrication, is mentioned in Herve’s inventory (E 238 f. 79r no. 837, Item, le papier de celx qui doivent host

au duc de Bretaingne et est ledit papier en parchemin).73 E 132 f. 18re19v, Forma homagium seu submissionis Britannie facti per illustrissimum principem dominum

Johannem Britannorum ducem comitem que Montisfortis et Richemondie illustrissimo principi domino Karolo Regi

Francie anno domini Mmo tricentisimo LXVIo die XIIIa mensis septembris Parisius. There are several anachronisms

in this title: for instance, John IV did not receive the earldom of Richmond from Edward III until 1372; it also seems

to conflate the homage to Charles V at Paris on 13 December 1366 (cf. Recueil Jean IV, vol. 1, nos 88e9) and that to

Charles VI at Compiegne on 27 September 1381 (ibid., nos 388e9). Paul Jeulin, ‘L’hommage de Bretagne’, AB, xli

(1934), 380e473 is an exhaustive discussion of this critical matter.74 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 236 f. 5r, Cy ensuit la tenour par vidimus et copie de pluseurs des lettres de tres excellent

prince et seignour monseignour le duc de Bretaingne que maistre Herve le Grant, tresorier et garde d’icelles, a fait es-

cripre en ce livre pour l’utilite et profit de mondit seignour des quelles ensuit les rebriches en la forme si apres conte-

nantes. Carefully written, with some rubricated initials, this large quarto volume, 290 x 335 mm., contains 114 folios,

with a modern index added by Leon Maıtre on the previously blank folios 97e102. The notaries who completed most of

the volume were Jean Halouart and Jamet Lamoureux.75 Lagadec, ‘Transcription’, 33.76 For example, AD Loire-Atlantique, E 103 no. 7, original letters of Louis X, May 1316, granting John III the cas-

tellany of St-James de Beuvron, endorsed Scripta est, Herveus. These letters are listed in the 1395 inventory (E 238 f. 1r,

no. 4) and transcribed into E 236 f. 33r. Similarly AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 5 no. 3, original letters of King John II, July

1352, ratifying those of Philip VI, June 1328, ordering the return to ducal courts of all Breton cases that have not come

to the Parlement de Paris via the Grands Jours, endorsed Scripta est, H. and R. Registrata which seem to be the royal

letters inventoried in 1395 (E 238 f. 3v, no. 36, Item, une autre grant lettre o le grant seau du roy en laz de soye et cire

vert et cousu en toile le dit seel pour ce qu’il estoit casse contenant: Ut a senescallibus ipsius appelletur ad parlamentum

suum, which compares with an endorsement on the original Pour le duc de Bretaigne ut a senescallis ipsius appeletur ad

parlamentum suum.), and then copied into E 236 f. 33r.


compilation of monastic cartularies. A full correlation between the documents listed in 1395and those included in the 1407 formulary remains to be completed so the number of possiblydiscarded ‘originals’ has yet to be definitively established. But what is already evident isHerve’s initiative and close supervision of fellow notaries, Jean Halouart and Jamet Lamour-eux,77 in producing this cartulary or formulary pour l’utilite et profit de mondit seignour and,we can add, for future reference in the chancery.78

His activities as secretary, notary and, from 1407, councillor of John V, continued largely un-abated for the next few years, though he probably employed more juniors to do the physical la-bour of writing documents. One of his clerks was a certain Moriset, who produced yet anothercopy of Philip V’s letters of March 1317 about Breton appeals to the Parlement de Paris,79 whileone of the last authentic documents bearing his signum so far discovered dates from 24 July 1410but is in a hand very different from his earlier instruments.80 As late as 3 January 1416 he was stillactive as secretary and tresorier et garde des lettres,81 but after 1410 there are few other refer-ences to his professional life, and the final mention we have is of his replacement in September1416, death in his late fifties or early sixties probably following shortly afterwards.82

The authorship of the Chronicon Briocense

We can now return to the question of the authorship, content and purpose of the Chronicon Brio-cense. Jean Kerherve has succinctly summarised what we already know about its author: that he wasa passionate ( fougeux) Breton patriot, equally vitriolic about the French and the English (or Saxonsas they usually occur in his work); he was knowledgeable about Breton legends and saints’ lives;a Breton speaker; an ardent defender of the Church, deeply lamenting the Schism, sympathisingwith the Clementists, but even more concerned about the fate of the Universal Church, clearly in-formed on its organisation, a supporter of the superiority of the spiritual over the temporal, aware ofthe theory of the Two Swords; an administrator who had probably exercised his talents in ecclesi-astical, financial and judicial affairs; well trained as a jurist and learned, quoting Civil and Canonlaw correctly, as well as Aristotle and the Fathers; someone close to John IV, generally admiring hispolicies (though, we can note, disapproving of the second marriage of his third wife, Jeanne de Nav-arre with Henry IV of England).83 Additionally, he provides indications on when he wrote, since

77 Halouart was still active as a secretary in 1420 but dead by 1438 (Lettres de Jean V, nos. 1411 and 2303), while by

1420 Lamoureux was treasurer of Arthur de Richemont (Lettres de Jean V, no. 1418).78 Many of the documents in AD Loire-Atlantique, E 236 were copied out again into a later volume covering the years

1220e1451 (E 113, 96 folios, paper) during another intense period of chancery activity around 1450.79 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 110 no. 11, a vidimus originally drawn up in 1317 by a royal clerk, Pierre Prevost, of Philip

V’s letters to the baillis of Tours and the Cotentin not to receive Breton appeals except in the two customary cases,

which bears the interesting dorsal command Pierre Prevost faites u[n] vidimus de la lettre le Roy qui est encorporee

en ce vidimus que vous feistes de la date de ce vidimus et que je les aie demain au soir et je vous poure du tout with

the later signature De Moriset clerc Mestre Herve.80 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 159 no. 14, 24 July 1410, letters of John V releasing back to the Dean and Chapter of

St-Malo, who had appealed to the Parlement de Paris against usual customary procedure, tithes and other revenues

which the duke had seized, calendared only in Lettres de Jean V, no. 1098 after later inventories.81 When he acted as caution for the new captain of Quimperle, Jean de Coeteveneuc (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 139

no. 7).82 cf. Lettres de Jean V, vol. 1, xc.83 Kerherve, ‘Aux origines’, 205e6; the author’s full animus against Jeanne does not come out in the printed extracts in

Preuves, vol. 1, 83, 86e7.


prefatory remarks to meum opusculum, ‘my little work’, state that he began writing in 1394,84 whilethe latest document cited in the Chronicon is dated 5 May 1416.85

Two main candidates have been proposed as fitting this identikit picture. Paul de Berthou, whofirst seriously studied the Chronicon in the late nineteenth century, valuably identifying the manysources on which the author drew and conveniently summarising the full contents of the incom-pletely published manuscripts, suggested that it may have been a Mr Guillaume de Vendel.86 Hewas a Breton clerk and Parisian academic sent by Charles VI to John V in 1406e07 in connectionwith negotiations to end the Schism, with de Berthou basing his case for authorship largely on thefact that the letters Vendel brought on that occasion were subsequently incorporated into the Chron-icon confirming the author’s obsession with this issue.87 But their delivery to the Tresor des chartes,where they would have been available to other potential authors (and where they can still be seen)weakens this case, as does the failure of Vendel to meet other criteria necessary to the identificationof the author as Pocquet du Haut-Jusse long ago pointed out, making instead a plausible case forHerve Le Grant.88 Kerherve has also accepted this, but neither produced irrefutable proof. Myown preference is similar, but can intuitions and preferences be improved upon? The purpose ofthe detailed sketch of his life already offered was intended to suggest they can.

So to summarise where we have got to so far: what we know about Herve’s career and thechronology of the composition of the Chronicon (let alone its contents, on which more shortly)correspond so neatly that the conclusion that he is the author seems to me compelling. Betweenthe early 1380s and 1416 he was in full-time employment in the ducal chancery, for the lasttwenty years in charge of the Tresor des chartes. Here between 1395 and 1407 he was notablyactive in classifying and making available through his inventory, registers and separate copies,a wide range of records considered important for the preservation and recording of ducal rights.As for the author of the Chronicon he, too, was at work between 1394 and 1416 demonstrablyusing to compile his history most of the tools which Herve had provided, like the copy of theLivre des Ostz, the documents listed in the 1395 inventory or transcribed in full in the 1407formulary. In fact it is possible to go through the Chronicon ticking off the documents para-phrased or cited in extenso which Herve himself had not only handled, but in a high proportionof cases personally written out as originals (because he was the notary who recorded the trans-action) or of which he had himself delivered vidimuses. It has also struck me forcibly as I haveworked on this paper that some features of the structure of the Chronicon fall more easily intoplace in the light of what has now been discovered about the later years of Herve’s career.

As de Berthou first pointed out, in many respects what we currently have in the Chronicon ismore a compendium of documents than a finished history.89 There is no room here to discussthe sources used for the earlier parts in any detail,90 apart from some pseudo-charters to which I

84 Preuves, vol. 1, 7.85 de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 86, a sentence condemning Nicolas d’Orgement, dean of Tours, maıtre des Comptes, to per-

petual imprisonment for his part in a conspiracy of the Parisians against the king of Sicily and duke of Berry, April

1416, omitted in the published extracts of the Chronicon. For this incident see Francoise Lehoux, Jean de France,duc de Berri, sa vie, son action politique (1340e1416), 4 vols (Paris, 1966e68), vol. 3, 401e3.

86 de Berthou, ‘Introduction’, 78.87 Preuves, vol. 1, 95e100.88 Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Les papes, vol. 2, 450 and n. 2. The originals are in AD Loire-Atlantique, E 46 and copies in

E 55 f. 132, 134v, 136v and 138v. The case against Vendel, who came from Haute- rather than Basse-Bretagne, is further

reinforced in Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, ‘La derniere phase’, 144.89 de Berthou, ‘Introduction’, 80.90 Many are indicated in de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 3 and following; see also the list compiled by Le Duc (above n. 18).


shall come in a moment, but for the period from the late twelfth century onwards, and especiallywhen we approach the author’s own times, the dependence on archival material becomes prepon-derant.91 It is also well ordered chronologically, for the most part, especially for the reign of John IVuntil about 1396. The account of the Nicopolis campaign adds little to what is known from othersources though it characteristically uses the occasion to belittle the French for indiscipline and fool-hardiness.92 But the years 1396e99 and 1403e06 are then largely passed over in silence, thoughthe death of John IV in 1399 and the minority of John Vare fairly comprehensively and accuratelydiscussed.93 The description of John IV’s funeral and John V’s ceremonial entry and inauguration atRennes in 1401 are both by someone who was an eyewitness and in the latter case had access toa copy of the liturgy used on that occasion.94 There are also both prose and verse eulogies ofJohn IV, the latter in no less than 198 lines of poor hexameters.95 The account of princely politicsin France from 1407e16 is, however, extremely confused in the surviving manuscript versions. DeBerthou showed, for instance, that there is a sequence which deals with 1410e12, followed by theAgincourt campaign, then a reversion to events of 1407e08, before jumping next to 1411, withJohn V’s military and mediatory role in Armagnac-Burgundian feuding providing the major leit-motiv though efforts to resolve the Schism in 1406e07 also hold the author’s attention.96 He isalso reasonably informative on various stages of John V’s tortuous dispute with Marguerite de Clis-son, comtesse de Penthievre, over possession of the lordship of Moncontour, following the death ofher father, the Constable of France, Olivier V de Clisson (1407), which eventually resulted in theduke’s largely forcible acquisition in 1410.97 Evidence for Herve Le Grant’s career suggest that the

91 Among the most important early archival documents cited is the Assize du comte Geoffroi (1185), omitted in Pre-

uves, vol. 1, 38, which regulated noble successoral practices and on which the author provides a short commentary re-

vealing his legal competence; cf. Judith A. Everard, Brittany and the Angevins. Province and empire 1158e1203

(Cambridge, 2000), esp. 182e203 for surviving texts and editions of the Assize including that cited in the Chronicon.92 Preuves, vol. 1, 76e7, and cf. de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 74e5.93 Preuves, vol. 1, 78 and 79e80 (John IV’s death) and 80e9 (John V’s minority, though omitting from the edition

passages critical of Philip, duke of Burgundy, for his infringement of Breton rights and some of the lamentations on

the murder of Louis, duke of Orleans: cf. de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 79e81).94 Preuves, vol. 1, 78 (funeral, November 1399), 80 (commemorative mass for John IV, 15 March 1401), both more regali,

and 80e2 (inauguration), for which see Michael Jones, ‘‘‘En son habit royal’’: le duc de Bretagne et son image vers la fin du

Moyen Age’, in: Representation, pouvoir et royaute a la fin du moyen age, ed. Joel Blanchard (Paris, 1995) [reprinted in

Jones, Between France and England, ch. XI], 253e78 at 265e6. Francoise Fery-Hue, ‘Le ceremonial du couronnement

des ducs de Bretagne au XVe siecle. Edition’, in: Actes du 107e Congres national ., Questions d’histoire de Bretagne,

247e63 provides a valuable commentary (although misdating the Chronicon’s text by a century); a late fifteenth-century

liturgy may now be found in the Missel pontifical de Michel Guibe. Ceremonial du couronnement des ducs de Bretagne, ed.

Andre Chedeville et al. (Association des Amis des Archives historiques du diocese de Rennes, Dol et Saint-Malo, Rennes,

2001).95 Preuves, vol. 1, 79e80; the printed version provides only 48 lines: cf. de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 77.96 de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 80.97 de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 82; cf. Michael Jones, ‘Marguerite de Clisson, comtesse de Penthievre, et l’exercice du pouvoir’,

in: Femmes de pouvoir, femmes politiques durant les derniers siecles du moyen age et au cours de la premiere Renaissance,

ed. Alain Marchandisse, Eric Bousmar and Bertrand Schnerb (Lille, forthcoming) for fuller treatment of this matter. In the

light of arguments being advanced here for Herve Le Grant’s probable authorship of the Chronicon Briocense, it is interesting

to note that in addition to being in the ducal council when several decisions were taken over the Moncontour dispute, he also

received Marguerite’s letters of 11 December 1410, accepting the final settlement, for the Tresor des chartes, on 6 February

1411 as a dorsal note states (AD Loire-Atlantique, E 168 no. 32, . Jehan Halouart baille a mestre Herve Le Grant cestes

dous letters par le commandement des gens du conseill de monseignour le duc). John V had acquired his questionable title to

Moncontour by buying out that of Robert de Dinan, despite the fact that Dinan had earlier sold his interest to Marguerite in

a series of very complex legal manoeuvres which are best summarised in AD Pyrenees-Atlantiques, E 92, but see AD Pyr-

enees-Atlantiques, E 619, E 636 and Preuves, vol. 2, 789e90.


years 1405e07 in many respects marked the apogee of his professional archival activities eventhough he remained in post for a further nine years. Whoever wrote the Chronicon clearly had readyaccess throughout this period to the ducal records; can we safely put two and two together and seean ageing Herve filling some of his time during this period labouring still at the Chronicon but find-ing, because of its bulk, it more and more difficult to proceed beyond compilation to composition? Ithink we can, but at this point I would like to introduce one final theme on the emerging character ofthis new Matiere de Bretagne.

The Invention of Montfort Historiography

Among the many documents that the author of the Chronicon cites, there are several evidentforgeries alongside genuine archival material. Three deserve closer attention since they weredestined to be perpetuated in serious histories of the duchy of Brittany down until very recenttimes. They are, first, a pseudo-charter of Alan ‘by the grace of God, king of the Letavians orArmorican Bretons’ supposedly dated 15 May 689;98 secondly, the account of a supposedParlement held by Alan Fergent, duke of Brittany (1084e1113/16) in May 1087 or 1088,99

and thirdly, an alleged treaty concluded between Peter Mauclerc, duke of Brittany (1213e37)and Louis IX at Angers in 1231.100 The purpose of all three was to justify historically certainrights and privileges claimed by dukes from time immemorial whether in respect to theirauthority over their subjects or in relation to the kings of France. Earlier commentators haveagreed that the diplomatic forms used by the fabricator reflect late fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Breton chancery practices and the institutions and offices referred to in the forgeriesalso nicely fit that period. There is mention, for example, of a ‘president’ in King Alan’s letters,and we know that the first occasion on which a President de Bretagne as Brittany’s leading lawofficer occurs is in 1383.101 As for the 1231 treaty, in which after a grudging recognition ofLouis IX’s sovereignty by Mauclerc, the king apparently acknowledges a comprehensive listof the duke’s rights, de Berthou long ago said it was probably made in John IV’s day, reflectingas it does the ambiguity that was introduced into his relationship with the crown by homage cer-emonies in 1366 and 1381 whereby earlier liege obligations were cleverly blurred.102 It was in hisreign, too, that the notion of droits royaux, regalities, was popularised to describe the duke’s par-ticular prerogatives and privileges.103 Writing about King Alan’s mandate of 689, ordering the in-vestigation of various complaints against his officers and the exercise of ducal judicial andfinancial powers, Jean Kerherve has anticipated my own argument in commenting, ce mandement,imitant les habitudes de la chancellerie ducale et lui empruntant ses formules, constitue l’un desarguments qui prechent en faveur d’une attribution de la Chronique a Herve Le Grant.104 Thisis equally true of the 1087/8 proces-verbal in which the nine bishops and nine ancient barons

98 Omitted from Preuves but printed in full in Chronicon Briocense, ed. Le Duc and Sterckx, 216e24.99 de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 41; BnF, MS latin 9888 f. 99ve100r, in Preuves, vol. 2, Preface, xxv, with the date 1077;

other copies are dated 1087 or 1088 (see further below).100 Briefly noted in Preuves, vol. 1, 40, and most easily accessible via the French translation in Bouchart, Grandes Cro-

niques, ed. Auger and Jeanneau, vol. 1, 462e6.101 Guillaume l’Eveque president en parlement et seneschal de Brouerec et de Ploearmel (Preuves, vol. 2, 446; RecueilJean IV, vol. 2, no. 433).102 de Berthou, ‘Analyse’, 6; cf. above n. 78 and Jones, Ducal Brittany, 19, 46e7, 97.103 cf. Jones, The Creation of Brittany, 8, 10e12 and 302e4.104 Kerherve, ‘Aux origines’, 191 n. 101.


of Brittany e again a myth born, it seems, in John IV’s reign105 e recognise the sovereignty of theduke. He, in turn, states that no-one exercises it over him but God (absque eo quod recognosceretvel haberat aliquem superiorem super se, cui de dicto Ducatu suo aliquod obsequium seu obedi-entiam faceret vel deberet, nisi solum Deum).106 The earliest known copy of this pseudo-charterappears to be that in the manuscript copy of the Livre des Ostz which dates to shortly before1395.107 Thus in content as well as diplomatic form, these forgeries reflect very specific circum-stances of the years around 1400. It would be possible to reinforce this statement further by a muchmore detailed analysis, from which I shall desist apart from a couple of further remarks.

First, to emphasise the precision of the forgeries in their authenticating and dating clauses;whoever the writer of the Chronicon was, he was very interested in such detail and shows theprofessional expertise that we would expect of an experienced notary.108 Secondly, in the 1087/8 document a further detail intended to enhance its spurious validity is a final clause describingthe money current in the duchy at the moment of issue: Tunc etiam temporis currebat in Bri-tannia moneta argentea, valente quolibet Albo argenteo sex denarios turonensis, et etiam parvidenarii nigri currebant tunc in Britannia. In qua siquidem moneta Albo argenteo erant insculp-tae duae Erminae circa crucem, et in pila tres Erminae; in cujus quidem monetae margine seucircumferentia erat sculptum sic: Moneta Alani Dei gratia Britonum Ducis.109 Compare thiswith the concluding sentences of the preface to the Chronicon speaking about when the writerbegan his work: Tempore eciam huiusmodi compilacionis currebat moneta argentea in Britan-nia, quolibet Albo argenteo X denari Turonensis valente; et parvi Duplices, et Denarii nigri. Inqua quidem moneta alba insculpte sunt in pila IX ermine. Quam quidem monetam argen-team fieri seu fabricari fecerat idem Johannes Dux Britannie.110 The first is surely a calqueof the second, with minimal changes to establish its bona fides. Herve’s inventory of 1395 listsat least eight documents relating to the duke’s right to coin money, which was frequently a mat-ter of dispute with the crown. The latest was Charles VI’s concession in 1383 that during theFlemish campaign, Breton money would be considered legal tender throughout the kingdom asthe Chronicon affirms: Dictoque veagio Flandrie durante ac eciam tractatu pacis predicto mon-eta alba et nigra dicti Ducis Britannie habebat cursum per totum regnum Francie sicut habebatet habere consueverat in Britannia.111 Original letters of John IV acknowledging this

105 Arthur de La Borderie, Etude historique sur les neuf barons de Bretagne (Rennes, 1895) is the starting point for

modern studies. The earliest archival reference appears to be in a case concerning the lord of Rieux in 1405 when Brit-

tany was said to have one duke, nine barons and nine bishops . (Bouchart, Grandes Croniques, ed. Auger and Jean-

neau, vol. 3, 111 n. 42 after BnF, MS Collection de Bourgogne 73 f. 44, extracts from the registers of Parlement by

Baluze). It can be pointed out that the well established nine bishops of Brittany are balanced by nine leading lay lords

as witnesses to John IV’s confirmation of the privileges of St-Michel d’Auray on 25 February 1396, although only two

of them, Guy XII de Laval as lord of Vitre and Jean I, lord of Rieux and Rochefort as lord of Ancenis represent what

came in the fifteenth century to be recognised as the ‘official’ list of the nine ancient barons (Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2, no.

1043).106 Preuves, vol. 2, Preface, xxv.107 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 132 f. 2rev, Sequitur modus sessionis prelatorum et proceres Britannie in Parlamento ducis;

for the date see n. 72.108 This is evident from the start in the preface (Preuves, vol. 1, 7) and is especially highlighted by the exact dating of

events not only by date but often by day of the week. Although I have not done a complete survey, the majority of the

dates given for the ‘historic’ sections of the Chronicon appear to be remarkably accurate, this being helped by the ex-

tensive use of original records.109 Preuves, vol. 2, Preface, xxv.110 Preuves, vol. 1, 7.111 Preuves, vol. 1, 58.


concession were issued at Montfort l’Amaury en route for Flanders on 19 August 1383; it willcome as little surprise to learn that the clerk who wrote them was Herve himself.112 There isalso the possibility that not only did he personally confect the forgeries which are includedin the Chronicon but may also have had a hand in manufacturing ‘originals’ to be lodged inthe Tresor.

In the next surviving inventory of the ducal archives, prepared in 1430 when Pierre Piedru,recently elected bishop of Treguier, handed them over to his successor as garde des lettres, MrJean Prigent, little noticed to date is an entry: Item, un papier ou quel sont contenu les infor-macions faites en Bretaigne par Alain Roy de Bretaigne a la requeste des prelaz, contes etbarons. Item, comment lesd. prelaz et barons doyvent soir en parlement du duc selon l’ancientemps. Item, comme Bretaigne fut premier subgite au Roy de France par Pierre de Drosco, ducde Bretaigne pour le temps.113 In other words, alongside perfectly authentic records in the Tre-sor, we now find our three forgeries, and there is another mentioned on f. 4v which I have yet topin on Herve Le Grant though the probability is high that he had a hand in its elaboration de-spite its absence from the Chronicon: Item, vidimus du privilege du duc contenant plusours lib-ertez et declaracions des droiz et libertez du duche lequel fut donne l’an mil IIIc XV, scell[e]d’un seau tout rompu en coue double et cire vert e a copy of a pseudo-original relating to a fic-titious meeting of the Breton Estates in 1315, still considered authentic by the great nineteenth-century romantic historian of the duchy, Arthur de La Borderie, but which Pocquet duHaut-Jusse finally exposed in magisterial style 80 years ago.114

Copies of this latter document proliferated in the mid fifteenth century in another inventivephase in the chancery’s history,115 especially after another vidimus of the supposed original wasdrawn up in 1462 at the height of the regale controversy at Nantes, since the 1315 forgery bothassigned places in Parlement in order of precedence to the Breton bishops and also has themclearly acknowledging ducal sovereignty.116 But there are also earlier copies in hands thatare intended to be archaic though they, like the other forgeries considered above, give them-selves away on palaeographic as well as diplomatic grounds.117 We even get further attemptsto create additional evidence for the duke’s superiority over his prelates, by modifying the 1087document, of which the best example I know was allegedly issued by illustre, magnific et inclit

112 AN, J 243 no. 68¼ Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2, no. 459.113 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 239 f. 3v.114 B.-A. Pocquet de Haut-Jusse, ‘Les faux Etats de Bretagne de 1315 et les premiers Etats de Bretagne’, BEC, lxxxv

(1925), 388e406.115 Cf. Jean Kerherve, ‘Les enquetes sur les droits ‘royaux et ducaux’ de Bretagne aux XIVe et XVe siecles’, Informa-

tion et societe en Occident a la fin du moyen age (Paris, 2004), 405e25.116 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 56 no. 1, a vidimus of 15 October 1462 by Andre Seguin and Pierre Vivien, clerks and no-

taries of Nantes; other mid 15th century versions include ibid., E 74 no.¼ Preuves, vol. 1, 1252, BnF, MS francais 5512

no. 30, AD Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 E 14 no. 1 and 1 E 13 no. 5, another vidimus of 15 October 1462, but relating three genuine

letters recounting the homage of the bishop of Nantes to the duke in 1269, 1384 and 1399, along with the ‘1315’ letters,

all produced before the chapter of Nantes by the chancellor of Brittany, Guillaume Chauvin. Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Les

papes, vol. 2, 782 and following for the great dispute between Francis II and Guillaume de Malestroit and Amaury

d’Acigne over their respective rights as bishops of Nantes; for the regale in particular, see also Philippe Contamine,

‘The contents of a French diplomatic bag in the fifteenth century: Louis XI, regalian rights and Breton bishoprics,

1462e1465’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, xxv (1981), 52e72 [also published as ‘Methodes et instruments de travail

de la diplomatie francaise. Louis XI et la regale des eveches bretons (1462e1465)’ in his Des pouvoirs en France

1300/1500 (Paris, 1992), 147e67].117 For example, AD Loire-Atlantique, E 59 no. 5, written in a pseudo-archaic hand probably early in the fifteenth

century.


prince J., par la grace divine, duc et prince des nobles Bretons in Estates held at Rennes on 9May 1062.118 It was this version that was given particularly wide currency by Bertrand d’Ar-gentre’s Histoire de Bretagne, first published in 1588 and into its third edition by 1618.119 An-other recension attributing it to a Duke Yvon, given at Nantes on 5 May 1057, which found itsway into editorial additions to Le Baud’s Croniques,120 was later used by the eighteenth-century fraudster, Nicolas Delvincourt to forge spurious titles for a vast and gullible clienteleseeking to authenticate the ancient noble roots of their families.121

To return for the last time to what appear to be the origins of this sustained wave of imaginativeinventions whose main purpose was to enhance the status of the duke vis-a-vis the crown and hisown leading vassals, Pocquet du Haut-Jusse suggested that an early draft of the false Estates of1315 document can be detected in instructions given to envoys sent to the French court in 1384 afteronly the second clearly authenticated meeting of the Estates in John IV’s reign. On this occasion theBreton ambassadors were furnished with arguments relating to the ‘regalities’ of the duke to justifyhis conduct during a dispute with the count of Alencon, baron of Fougeres, though Pocquet sug-gested one particular paragraph on the duke’s exercise of regale over his bishops could havebeen interpolated since it is not found in the manuscript from which Dom Morice printed the pro-ceedings at Rennes in May 1384.122 His hunch seems to be confirmed by an original of the instruc-tions which he did not know that survives without the clause in question,123 though the defence thatthe document presents of the duke’s case is striking enough already, making use of the concept of lamaire et plus saine partie and the Roman law tag Quia quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem tojustify his powers as exercised through the Breton Parlement. Nor is there much doubt that the otherthree forgeries I have discussed were certainly drafted within a few years of 1384, to be given widercurrency both by inclusion in the Chronicon and in chancery formularies as well as by the preser-vation of ‘originals’ among otherwise authentic ducal records. As a result this apparently archive-based matiere de Bretagne passed easily to later generations of Breton historians, starting withSaint-Paul and Le Baud, who only slowly recognised its mythical character.124 With Churchillianpanache, Herve Le Grant and his chancery colleagues had certainly given the Montfort dynasty, itsfuture assured by the birth of a large family to John IV and Jeanne de Navarre,125 that favourablehistory which they had clearly intended.

118 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 59 no. 3, also forged c. 1400 if the hand is a guide; see Appendix below 22e23.119 Histoire de Bretagne, 214e5; d’Argentre also provides a Latin version (Histoire de Bretagne, 87e9; 1618 edn., 94).120 Le Baud, Croniques, ed. d’Hozier, 2eme partie, 201e2; see also Albert Mousset, ‘Nicolas Delvincourt et le Nobili-

aire de Bretagne’, AB, 29 (1914), 479e98 at 493e5 for a modern edition and commentary.121 Mousset, ‘Nicolas Delvincourt’, 491e3, who also points out that the Prince de Soubise, head of the Rohan family,

requested a verification of the alleged original of the 1087/8 charter in 1680 and that his rights under this document were

confirmed in 1692 (Mousset, ‘Nicolas Delvincour’, 492)!122 Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, ‘Les faux Etats’, 403 n. 2. Preuves, vol. 2, 456e9 for the instructions, printed from AD

Loire-Atlantique, E 130, an early fifteenth-century paper register, 47 folios, containing the proceedings in the Parle-

ments of 1384, 1386, 1396 and 1398.123 AD Loire-Atlantique, E 110 no. 8, before 31 May 1384¼ Recueil Jean IV, vol. 2, no. 508.124 Le Baud did reject the ‘1231’ treaty, though the major demolition of it was by Lenain de Tillemont in the 17th cen-

tury (Pocquet de Haut-Jusse, Les papes, vol. 1, 94 and idem, ‘Les faussaires en Bretagne’, Bulletin philologique et his-

torique (jusqu’au 1715), annees 1951 et 1952 (Paris, 1953), 95e102 at 97).125 cf. Preuves, vol. 1, 58e9 for specific details on the birth of three of their children; as de Berthou notes when writing

about the marriage of John IV and Jeanne de Navarre on 11 September 1386, the author expresses the hope that they will

get a male heir who will live for a long time and spare Brittany from new wars, suggesting that this passage at least was

drafted before the birth of their eldest son in 1389 and before 1394 which the author’s preface gives for his starting point

(‘Analyse’, 64).


Appendix

Pseudo-proces-verbal recording the fealty of the bishops of Brittany to J. duke of Brittany inthe Estates held at Rennes, 9 May 1062

[Archives Departementales de la Loire-Atlantique, E 59 no. 3 (LG 1), parchment ‘original’in late fourteenth/early fifteenth-century hand. No ‘contemporary’ endorsements]

A tous les vivans que sont et seront, comme illustre, magnific et inclit prince J., par la gracedivine duc et prince des nobles Bretons, ait mande ses prelaz et clerge de Bretaigne et auxi touxses barons, noblesses et trois estaz de son duche pour estre a la serment oboie e honorer, ainsique tenuz sont et doivent faire et ses besoignes et veint a ses parlemens et grans estaz, iceluymonseignour tenant et estant en son grant parlement et en sa maieste et habit roial, ses estazvenuz a lui en ceste ville et cite de Rennes, a prins et receuz ses feaultez et homages ligementdeuz sus touz les nobles de son pais tant de l’eglise que de la secularite. Et premier vindrenddavant P. evesque de Dol, R. evesque de Rennes, O. evesque de Nantes, G. evesque de St Mal-lou, B. evesque de Cornoialle, P. evesque de Vannes, S. evesque de St Brieuc, G. evesque deLeon, M. evesque de Triguer avec les envoies pour leurs chapitres, lesquelx evesques etchapitres, aians les mains sur leurs poetrines, jureront par leurs sermens estre bons et loiauxa mondit seignour et a ses hoirs et lui oboit et a sa justice souveraine de parlement de Bretaigneen tout proche ressort de leurs senechalx et officiers de justice temporelle en leurs Regalles fon-dez des ancestres de mondit seignour, reserve leur derroin apel a la court apostolique, entre la-quelle et leurs fiez est mondit seignour et non autre le moien, et l’ont lesd. prelaz avoe leurserment souverain prochain a lui qu’a nul autre prince temporel et de lui teint touz leurs Re-galles, libertez et privileges, lesquelx privileges, franchises et libertez et de toute l’eglise deBretaigne, dont mondit seignour est protectour et garde, en toute hautesse et proche seignorieet o droit de joissance de fruz de Regalles seges vaquans, il de sa noblesse et souveraine puis-sance roial de constituez et de promis garde et entreteint en augmentant a l’eglise non mie en ladiminuant pour lesquelles chouses fermer et congnoestre ces presentes en ont este par mons.ordonnes esd. prelatz prinses des registres de ce present parlement associe de touz les trois estazle jour mons. saint Nicolas de May, l’an de grace M[il] LX et dous apres l’incarnacion nostreseignour.

Par la court et extrait des Regestres dudit ParlementJ. Tournemine

Michael Jones is Emeritus Professor of Medieval French History, University of Nottingham, and Correspondant de l’In-

stitut de France. His recent work includes the Letters, orders and musters of Bertrand du Guesclin, 1357e1380 (2004)

and Le premier inventaire du tresor des chartes des ducs de Bretagne (1395). Herve Le Grant et les origines du Chron-icon Briocense (2007).

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