collegiate church of St. Martin, one of the most venerated sanctuaries of
Gaul. Some of the Northmen, quitting the river-banks, carried fire and
sword through the country to Angers and Poitiers., Next year Blois and
Orleans were ravaged, and a body of Danes wintered at the island of
Besse near Nantes, where they fortified themselves. On the other hand,
in 849, Nomenoë of Brittany, who was striving ever harder to make good
his position as an independent sovereign, and had just made an attempt
to set up a new ecclesiastical organisation in Brittany, withdrawing it
from the jurisdiction of the Frankish metropolitan at Tours[1], was again
in arms. He seized upon Rennes, and ravaged the country as far as
Le Mans. Death put an abrupt end to his successes (7 March 851), but
his son and successor, Erispoë, obtained from Charles, who had been discouraged by fruitless expedition, his recognition as king of Brittany,
now enlarged by the districts of Nantes, Retz and Rennes.
Finally, the affairs of Aquitaine only just failed to rekindle war between the Eastern and Western kings. The authority of Charles, in spite of Pepin's oath of fealty, and in spite of the apparent submission of the magnates in 818, had never been placed, to the south of the Loire, on really solid foundations. In 849 he had been obliged to despatch a fresh expedition into Aquitaine, which had failed in taking Toulouse. But afterwards in 852 the chance of a skirmish threw Pepin into the hands of Sancho, Count of Gascony, who handed him over to Charles the Bald. The king at once had the captive tonsured and interned in a monastery. But this did little to secure the submission of Aquitaine. The very next year the magnates of the country sent envoys to Louis the German offering him the crown, either for himself or one of his sons, and threatening, if he refused it, to have recourse to the heathen, either Saracen or Northman. Louis the German agreed to send one of his sons, Louis the Younger, whom they might put at their head. But Charles the Bald had become aware of what was intended against him, for he is at once found making closer alliance with Lothar, whom he met twice, first at Valenciennes and then at Liège. In the course of the interviews the two sovereigns guaranteed to each other the peaceful possession of their lands for themselves and their heirs. When they separated, Aquitaine was in full revolt. Charles hastened to collect his
- ↑ The question of the Breton schism has given rise within the last few years to keen discussion between M. M. R. Merlet (La Chronique de Nantes, Paris, 1896, 8vo, p. xxxix et sqq.); R. de la Borderie (Histoire de la Bretagne, tome II. p. 180 et sqq.); Mgr. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, tome II. p. 256 et sqq.); L. Levillain ('Les réformes ecclésiastiques de Nomenoë' in the Moyen Age, 1901, p. 201 et sqq.) and F. Lot ('Le schisme breton du IXᵉ siècle' in Mélanges d'histoire bretonne, Paris, 1907, 8vo, p. 58 et sqq.) especially with regard to the value of the original narratives dealing with these facts. It seems certain that the Breton prince set up a metropolitanate of Dol. But it is more doubtful whether he created bishoprics at Tréguier and Saint-Brieuc, which continued as before to be abbeys the Abbots of which held the rank of Bishops.
