Porhoët

The Porhoët is a historical area in the center of the Brittany on both sides of the Oust, affluent right of the Vilaine.

Etymology

The name of Porhoët derives from Poutrecoet (louse-tre-coet, “ country through the forest ”) (it was then about an immense main forest acting as natural obstacle), the Breton form of the Pagus trans sylvam (Country of in addition to-forest). By linguistic erosion, the form was brought back to Porhoët.

Because of this origin, this word was used to indicate:

  • the Deanery of Porhoët, in the évêché of Valves;
  • the Archidiaconé of Porhoët, in the évêché of Saint-Malo;
  • part of archidiaconé of Penthièvre.

The Viscount of Porhoët

The Viscount of Porhöet originates in a Fief made up in the west of the county of Rennes by the Eudes Viscount or Eudon quoted in 987 which lived under the reign of Conan Ier of Brittany. It appears at the 11th century like Viscount gathering more than 140 parishes and covering nearly 4.000 km ². The first lord which one knows the name calls Guezenoc or Guéthénoc and builds a feudal mound with Castle-Trô in the current commune of Guilliers. He is quoted in 1008 at the time of the duke Geoffroi I {{er}}.

His/her son, called Josselin (" Gauzlin"), built the castle which is at the origin of the city of the same name. The fact that Breton Guéthénoc (Guézenoc) and his Alarun wife took again the name Rorgonides of Gauzlin (Josselin) and that of the Eudes Viscount for their sons and grandson makes it possible to think that its family was related by the women with these two families of franque origin.

Geoffroy, wire of Eudon Ier which succeeded his/her brother Josselin II, agrees in 1127 to give to his junior, Alain the southern part of the Viscount on Right Bank of Oust, except Ploërmel and the surroundings of Josselin, which becomes then the Viscount of Rohan. The son of Geoffroy Eudon II of Porhoët is the son-in-law of the Duke Conan III of Brittany and regent with died of this one, but it fails in its attempt to prevent Henri II Plantagenêt to take foot in Brittany and definitively to control it in 1167. His/her son Eudon III did not leave a male heir to succeed to him. The Viscount of Porhoët was thus divided between his three daughters:

  • Mahaut de Porhoët marries Geoffroy Ier de Fougères died in 1212 represented by their son Raoul III of Ferns died in 1256
  • Aliénor de Porhoët marries successive Alain V of Rohan died in 1232 and of Pierre de Chemillé
  • Jeanne de Porhoët marries Olivier Ier de Montauban
The divisions of the Viscount took place in 1239 and 1240. Raoul III of Ferns obtains 2/3 of the Viscount of Porhoët including Josselin and its castle, Lanouée and its forest with the parish of Mohon. Aliénor and its second husband had the towns of the Trinity-Porhoët of Chèze with its castle and of Loudéac with the forest of this name. Nothing indicates the name of the properties fallen to Jeanne de Porhoët and her husband who however had their half of a third of the Viscount with Aliénor and Pierre de Chemillé. The duke of Jean Ier of Brittany confirmed these divisions by a letter gone back to Ploërmel in February 1248.

The share of the Viscount reserved for Aliénor de Porhoët was allocated to the oldest son of its first marriage Alain VI of Rohan which made an agreement in this direction with his/her half-brother Thomas de Chemillé in 1284. It of this fact was incorporated in the inheritance of the Maison of Rohan.

The share of Raoul III of Ferns which constitutes the Viscount of Porhoët passed like the baronnie of Fougères to its heirs the Lusignan. The whole of the goods of this family was confiscated in 1309 by the king of France Philippe IV Beautiful the but it left of it the pleasure to Yolande de Lusignan sister of the last Viscount until his death. Porhoët was then given in prerogative to the family of Alençon in 1328 then acquired in 1370 by Olivier V of Clisson.

The marriage of his/her daughter Béatrix de Clisson with Alain VIII of Rohan allowed the reunification of Porhoët between the hands of the family of Rohan which preserved it.

List Viscounts of Porhoët

See too

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