ABSTRACT
The modern administrative region of Brittany occupies most of the northwestern peninsula of France and comprises the four Départements of Finistère, Côtes d’Armor, Morbihan and Ille-et-Vilaine, with its capital located at the inland city of Rennes, not far from the eastern border of the region. In the later middle ages the dukes of Brittany mostly ruled from Nantes, to the south, on the Loire estuary; the southeastern Département of Loire-Atlantique, although in many ways distinctive, has often been associated with Brittany proper, has frequently been the seat of its governmental authority, and continues to provide some metropolitan services for the Morbihan, although it now lies within the French administrative region of Pays-de-Loire. In what follows “Brittany” and “the region” refer to historic Brittany of the traditional five Départements (that is, including Loire-Atlantique), not the modern four (see Fig. 3.5).
