Historians write of the nine ancient barons of Brittany, among whom was divided the governmental control of the country, all of them being virtually subject to the reigning duke. They were:
- I. Seigneur d’Avaugour or De Goëllo.
- II. Vicomte de Léon.
- III. Seigneur de Fougères.
- IV. Sire de Vitré.
- V. Sire de Rohan.
- VI. Seigneur de Chateaubriand.
- VII. Seigneur de Retz.
- VIII. Seigneur de la Roche-Bernard.
- IX. Seigneur du Pont.
These original baronies expanded into a round hundred by the fifteenth century, and the list of them contains the ancestral names of the Breton nobility.
Henry II. of England dealt severely with Brittany, but his son Geoffrey married Constance, the daughter of Duke Conan IV., and this made the condition of the province more tolerable.
The first step toward the union of Brittany with the kingdom of France came when—through the intrigues of Philip Augustus—the daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet married Pierre Mauclerc, Count of Dreux, and a prince of the blood royal of France. Joan of Penthièvre also married the Count of Blois, another lieutenant of the King of France.
Device of Anne of Brittany