Breton emigration in Armorique

3rd at the 6th century of our era, the Bretons of the Roman province of Brittany (current Great Britain) emigrated in mass towards Armorique, current Brittany.

Various waves of emigration

The two banks of the English Channel were in contact since always from the commercial links between insular Brittany and the continent. The coastal reorganization of the defense system by the administration of Bottom Roman Empire at the end of IIIe century had as a first causes the need for coordinating the fight against the pirates Irish, clippings and Saxon. Within this framework, a first Breton migration towards the continent was primarily military. After the withdrawal of the Roman armies of insular Brittany in 411, the movement intensifies and is accompanied by the “saints”, i.e. the members of the clergy. Certain indices make it possible to suppose that those belonged to the aristocracy britto-Roman bus carrying of the Latin names gentilice S, such as for example Paulus Aurelianus , Saint pol. Aurélien. This second wave of emigration was not only organized but encouraged by the Church and its new political allies, the frank kings Clovis and Childebert Ier. A last vagueness of emigration, posterior on arrival of the seven saints, was caused by the progressive invasion of the Angles and the Saxons on the island of Brittany, called since Great Britain.

Reasons

The reasons of the settlement of the Armorique by the Breton ones are known little about, to see the article Histoire of Brittany. The current assumption evokes an exodus: fleeing the massacres perpetrated by higher enemies of number, the Breton islanders flowed initially towards the borders of their large island (Cornouailles English, Wales, Scotland), then number of them passed the Mer of Brittany (thus they called the Manche, name which it still carries into Breton) to come to take refuge on the continent in particular in the Armorican peninsula and in Normandy since the Gaulle was itself Celtic. A more recent assumption proposes not the pressure of the Angles and other people but the bonds having from time immemorial existed between the two regions, and that well before the arrival of tribes christianized vis-a-vis the Germanic barbarians. Whatever is the cause, this movement of immigration was facilitated by the cultural proximity of Breton with the Gallic ones although conflicts took place with the deprived autochtones of the capacity and the francs invested of the imperial capacity since Clovis. The Breton ones named the Armorican peninsula “small Brittany”.

Consequences

The ground of Breton being in the beginning the island of Brittany, now called Great Britain, it occurred in the continuation a semantic slip in the continental language, which leads to the carryforward of this name of Brittany on Gaulle Armorican, since it was populated the Breton ones: To avoid the confusion generated by this transfer, one started to speaking about Brittany Insulaire , or the United Kingdom for the island of origin, and Petite Brittany or Brittany Armorique . In modern English, the term Britain as frequently gets busy as Great Britain to indicate the British Isles, whereas Armorican Brittany (that the English often called “ Less Britain ” - literally: Moindre Brittany) saw its English name changing in Brittany (which means literally Bretagnette , the suffix “there” being in English the equivalent of French “- and”), putting thus fine at the confusion of the term Britain .

This strong immigration of Breton in Armorique was accompanied by a movement of civilization, because Great Britain was already christianized while Armorique knew many famines and disorders. The arrival of Breton resulted in a " receltisation" linguistics of the peninsula where the Gallic one had weakened considerably by the Latinization of the elites. However, the clergy, the kings and Breton princes, they even romanized, kept the Latin language like administrative means of communication.

See too

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