Hoèl of Cornwall (died 1156) was

count of Nantes The counts of Nantes were originally the Frankish rulers of the Nantais under the Carolingians and eventually a capital city of the Duchy of Brittany. Their county served as a march against the Bretons of the Vannetais. Carolingian rulers would so ...

, from 1148 to his death. He was raised the son of Duke

Conan III Conan III, also known as Conan of Cornouaille and Conan the Fat ( br, Konan III a Vreizh, and ; c. 1093–1096 – September 17, 1148) was duke of Brittany, from 1112 to his death. He was the son of Alan IV, Duke of Brittany and Ermengarde of An ...

and Maud FitzRoy, an illegitimate daughter of King

Henry I of England Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in ...

. However, he was disinherited by his father when on his death-bed, as Conan III claimed that Hoèl was illegitimate and no son of his.Brittany Genealogy extracted Feb 1, 2008
/ref> Bertha then became heiress to Duke Conan's lands in Brittany, while Hoèl was allowed to remain Count of Nantes. He was accused by St. Bernard of Clairvaux of having an incestuous affair with his sister Bertha. The traditional story of the disinheritance might be a fable. Viscount Charles de la Lande de Calan proposed, in 1908, that Hoël was an illegitimate son for whom Conan III decided to provide Nantes for his support. The name Hoël had been used for illegitimate sons of the counts of Nantes. Katharine Keats-Rohan, in 1996, proposed that Conan III disinherited his legitimate son for the purpose of unifying Brittany through the marriage of his daughter Bertha to her cousin Alan, whose father inherited two of the provinces of Brittany. Hoël was given Nantes for his lifetime. This arrangement would have required years of planning to implement, and might have begun before Hoël was born.Everard, Judith Ann. ''Brittany and the Angevins: Province and Empire 1158-1203'' ( Cambridge University Press, 2000) pp. 29-31, Supported by

Geoffrey FitzEmpress Geoffrey VI (1 June 1134 – 27 July 1158) was Count of Nantes from 1156 to 1158. He was also known as Geoffrey of Anjou and Geoffrey FitzEmpress. He was the son of Geoffrey Plantagenet and Empress Matilda. His brothers were Henry II of England ...

, Henry II's younger brother in 1156 the Nantaise rebelled against Hoèl and drove him out of the country. Control of Nantes was part of a larger strategy in the ongoing war between Stephen of England and Empress Matilda. With his sister's marriage to

Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond (before 1100 – 15 September 1146), Breton ''Alan Penteur'', also known as "Alan the Black", was a Breton noble who fought for Stephen, King of England. Alan was the third son of Stephen, Count of Tréguier, and ...

, Brittany entered the conflict on the side of Stephen. Shortly after his exile from Nantes, Hoèl of Cornwall may have sought sanctuary at the Cistercian abbey of Melleray, where he may have died shortly thereafter.

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See also