ABSTRACT
On Monday 9 July 871, ‘the year that King (rex) Salomon wanted to go to Rome but was unable to do so because his chief men (principes) would not let him, because of fear of the Northmen’, Salomon walked the bounds of St Ducocca’s little monastery in the plebs of Cléguerec ‘down from Cléguerec hill to the great stones, along the public road to the mound at the crossroads below Silfiac church … down the valley … to the river Blavet’.1 This followed the return of the property, which was substantial, to the abbot of Redon, Liosic, in Perret (north of Silfiac), before Salomon, his sons, four counts, the leader (princeps) of Poher, a bishop, an archdeacon, another abbot, and many others; it was returned by the ‘tyrannical’ machtiern Alfrit (tyrannus et uere tyrannus – tyrannus is the standard Latinization of ‘machtiern’ in this collection), who had appropriated the land and constructed a boundary bank or ditch (fossata and finem) around it; the occasion followed a court case brought by Liosic’s recent predecessor Ritcand before Salomon in his court at Retiers, following at least two decades of complaint. Salomon later sent many gifts to St Peter’s, in Rome, since his intended visit had been prevented.
