Role in Breton Culture
Brittany and France were still technically separate realms at the time, united only dynastically through the marriage of Duchess Anne to king Louis XII of France. The combination of the French and Breton fleets was thus the first significant military action in which the two countries fought together, twenty four years after the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier (1488), the last battle between them. It thus became symbolic within Brittany of the unity between Brittany and France.
The destruction of the Breton ship Marie la Cordelière quickly became famous. French poets Humbert de Montmoret and Germain de Brie both wrote poems about it. The latter work presented such an exaggeratedly heroic version of the death of Hervé de Portzmoguer, that it occasioned a satirical response from Thomas More, leading to a literary battle between More and de Brise. The death of de Portzmoguer, on the day of Saint Lawrence (10 August), was later portrayed as a deliberate act of self-sacrificing heroism. He is supposed to have said «Nous allons fêter saint Laurent qui périt par le feu!». ("we will celebrate the feast of Saint Lawrence, who died by fire") before blowing up the ship to avoid its capture. In fact, there is no evidence that the explosion was intentional and early literary accounts make no such claims. This version was commemorated by the Breton poet Théodore Botrel. A similar version is portrayed by Alan Simon in the song Marie la Cordelière from Anne de Bretagne (2008).
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Saint-Mathieu
Famous quotes containing the words role in, role, breton and/or culture:
“Certainly parents play a crucial role in the lives of individuals who are intellectually gifted or creatively talented. But this role is not one of active instruction, of teaching children skills,... rather, it is support and encouragement parents give children and the intellectual climate that they create in the home which seem to be the critical factors.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer’s role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“Much ado there was, God wot,
He would love and she would not.
She said, never man was true;
He said, none was false to you.”
—Nicholas Breton (1542–1626)
“The local is a shabby thing. There’s nothing worse than bringing us back down to our own little corner, our own territory, the radiant promiscuity of the face to face. A culture which has taken the risk of the universal, must perish by the universal.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)