Brittany in the Early Middle Ages by Wendy Davies;

Author:Wendy Davies;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Unlimited)
Published: 2023-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

IX

INTRA-FAMILY TRANSACTIONS IN SOUTH-EASTERN BRITTANY THE DOSSIER FROM REDON

The source

The monastery of Redon was founded in 832, at the head of the navigable waters of the River Vilaine, in north-west France, in the département of Ille-et-Vilaine and region of Brittany (Bretagne; fig. 1). The source of much of our information about south-eastern Brittany in the central middle ages is a cartulary that was written at Redon in the late eleventh century and maintained thereafter into the mid-twelfth century1. It was written in the second half of the eleventh century in the period when Abbot Aumod (1062-P1083) was energetically securing the monastery’s interests. This is evident from the fact that the early scripts of the cartulary (to f. 138v) are strongly influenced by those from mid- and late eleventh-century Mont-Saint-Michel - a foundation that we know to have had Breton interests and close contacts with Redon (Abbot Mainard was for a time abbot of both in the first decade of the eleventh century); further, the latest charter written in these scripts is dated to 1081; and Hubert Guillotel has identified the mid-eleventh-century scribe, Iudicael, who completed this first part of the cartulary2.

Fig. 1. 1 Le cartulaire de Redon, ed. A. de Courson, Paris, 1863 (hereafter CR, cited by charter n°.); and now a new facsimile, Cartulaire de Vabbaye Saint-Sauveur de Redon, Rennes, 1998. See H. Guillotel, Le manuscrit, ibid., p. 9-14, for description of the manuscript. 2 H. Guillotel, Le manuscnt..., p. 13-16. Cf. The Monks of Redon. Gesta sanctorum Rotonensium and Vita Conuuoionis, ed. and trans. C. Brett, Woodbridge, 1989 (Studies in Celtic History, 10), p. 25-27; and also W. Davies, The composition of the Redon cartulary, in Francia, 17, 1990, p. 69-90. There are now 391 charters in this cartulary, but there are at least 46 folios missing and the medieval cartulary would clearly have had well over 400 charters3. Despite the date of compilation, a high proportion of the charters in this collection relates to the ninth or early tenth century and 246 of the 391 record transactions from the two generations, A.D. 830-880; a further 22 charters pre-date 830. Of 62 additional charters known from early modern transcripts (presumably originally copied from the folios that are now missing), 55 also relate to the period 830-880 and 2 to before 830; and there is an isolated copy of a further ninth-century charter in the Bordeaux Bible (Bordeaux MS 1, f. 259v)4. In total, then, we have copies of 302 charters from 830-880 and 24 from pre-830. Over half of the 302 record donations (57%); 18% record sales and 6% record «pledges»5; a further 10% record disputes and their outcomes. There is one exchange and the remaining miscellanea include a sworn witness statement, bequests and a genealogy. (Of the pre-830 charters, 12% record donations, 64% sales, 16% pledges, and 4% disputes - a striking difference from the subsequent fifty years.)

Now, these charters only exist in cartulary or later copies. There are no originals. Questions have therefore to be asked about authenticity, especially as we do not know precisely why the initial cartulary was compiled.

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