Seven founder saints of Brittany

Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown.

Brittany has also been referred to as Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain, with which it shares an etymology). It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, Normandy to the northeast, eastern Pays de la Loire to the southeast, the Bay of Biscay to the south, and the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its land area is 34,023 km² .

Brittany is the site of some of the world's oldest standing architecture, home to the Barnenez, the Tumulus Saint-Michel and others, which date to the early 5th millennium BC. Today, the historical province of Brittany is split among five French departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the northeast, Morbihan in the south and Loire-Atlantique in the southeast. Loire-Atlantique now belongs to the Pays de la Loire region while the other four departments make up the Brittany region.

At the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. In 2017, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (934,165 inhabitants), Rennes (733,320 inhabitants), and Brest (321,364 inhabitants). Brittany is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and is one of the six Celtic nations, retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history. A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic, or independence from it.

Etymology

The word ''Brittany'', along with its French, Breton and Gallo equivalents ''Bretagne'', ''Breizh'' and ''Bertaèyn'', derive from the Latin ''Britannia'', which means "land of the Britons". This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain, and more specifically the Roman province of Britain. This word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη (Prettanike) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaniai), used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Isles around 320 BC. The Greek word itself comes from the common Brythonic ethnonym reconstructed as ''*Pritanī'', itself from Proto-Celtic ''*kʷritanoi'' (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ''*kʷer-'' 'to cut, make').

The Romans called Brittany ''Armorica''. It was a quite indefinite region that extended along the English Channel coast from the Seine estuary, then along the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary and, according to several sources, maybe to the Garonne estuary. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, ''aremorica'', which means "close to the sea". Another name, ''Letauia'' (in English "Litavis"), was used until the 12th century. It possibly means "wide and flat" or "to expand" and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany: ''Llydaw''.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many Britons settled in western Armorica, and the region started to be called ''Britannia'', although this name only replaced ''Armorica'' in the sixth century or perhaps by the end of the fifth.

Breton-speaking people may pronounce the word ''Breizh'' in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two main dialects: the ''KLT'' ( Kerne-Leon- Tregor) and the dialect of Vannes. KLT speakers pronounce it and would write it ''Breiz'', while the Vannetais speakers pronounce it and would write it ''Breih''. The official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a ''z'' and an ''h'' together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called ''Breton zh'', a standard which has never been widely accepted. On its side, Gallo has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance, the name of the region in that language can be written ''Bertaèyn'' in ''ELG'' script, or ''Bertègn'' in ''MOGA'', and a couple of other scripts also exist.

History

Prehistoric origins

Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Palaeolithic. This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe. Their only original feature was a distinct culture, called "Colombanian". One of the oldest hearths in the world has been found in Plouhinec, Finistère.

Homo sapiens settled in Brittany around 35,000 years ago. They replaced or absorbed the Neanderthals and developed local industries, similar to the Châtelperronian or to the Magdalenian. After the last glacial period, the warmer climate allowed the area to become heavily wooded. At that time, Brittany was populated by relatively large communities who started to change their lifestyles from a life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers. Agriculture was introduced during the 5th millennium BC by migrants from the south and east. However, the Neolithic Revolution in Brittany did not happen due to a radical change of population, but by slow immigration and exchange of skills.

Neolithic Brittany is characterised by important megalithic production and sites such as Quelfénnec, it is sometimes designated as the "core area" of megalithic culture. The oldest monuments, cairns, were followed by princely tombs and stone rows. The Morbihan ''département'', on the southern coast, comprises a large share of these structures, including the Carnac stones and the Broken Menhir of Er Grah in the Locmariaquer megaliths, the largest single stone erected by Neolithic people.

Gallic era

During the protohistorical period, Brittany was inhabited by five Celtic tribes:
* The Curiosolitae, who lived around the present town of Corseul. Their territory encompassed parts of Côtes-d'Armor, Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan ''départements''.
* The Namnetes, who lived in the current Loire-Atlantique ''département'' (in today's administrative ''région'' of Pays de la Loire), north of the Loire. They gave their name to the city of Nantes. The south bank of the river was occupied by an allied tribe, the Ambilatres, whose existence and territory remain unsure.
* The Osismii, who lived in the western part of Brittany. Their territory comprised the Finistère ''département'' and the western extremity of Côtes-d'Armor and Morbihan.
* The Redones (or ''Rhedones''), who lived in the eastern part of the Ille-et-Vilaine ''département''. They gave their name to the city of Rennes (''Roazhon'' in Breton language, in the center of the département) and to the town of Redon (in the south of the ''département'', bordering the ''département'' of Loire-Atlantique in the administrative ''région'' of Pays de la Loire, where its suburb town of Saint-Nicolas-de-Redon is located; however the city of Redon was founded around AD 832 under the initial name of ''Riedones'', long after the ''Redones'' people were assimilated to Bretons; the cultural link between ''Riedones'' and the former ''Redones'' people is highly probable but difficult to recover and the name of ''Riedones'' may have been written from a local usage preserving the name of the former people in the vernacular oral language from a reading of an ancient Greek orthography).
* The Veneti, who lived in the present Morbihan ''département'' and gave their name to the city of Vannes. Despite confusion by the classical scholar Strabo, they were unrelated to the Adriatic Veneti, especially for the tin trade . Several tribes also belonged to an "Armorican confederation" which, according to Julius Caesar, gathered the Curiosolitae, the Redones, the Osismii, the Unelli, the Caletes, the Lemovices and the Ambibarii. The last four peoples mentioned by Caesar were respectively located in Cotentin (Lower-Normandy), pays de Caux (Upper-Normandy), Limousin (Aquitany) and the location of the Ambibarii is unknown. The Caletes are sometimes also considered as Belgians and ″Lemovices″ is probably a mistake for ″Lexovii″ (Lower-Normandy).

Gallo-Roman era

The region became part of the Roman Republic in 51 BC. It was included in the province of Gallia Lugdunensis in 13 BC. Gallic towns and villages were redeveloped according to Roman standards, and several cities were created. These cities are Condate (Rennes), Vorgium (Carhaix) and Condevincum or Condevicnum (Nantes). Together with Fanum Martis (Corseul), they were the capitals of the local civitates. They all had a grid plan and a forum, and sometimes a temple, a basilica, thermae or an aqueduct, like Carhaix