1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nomenoë

NOMENOË, or Nominoë (d. 851), duke of Brittany. The date of his birth is not known, and his origin is obscure; all that is known is that he was of Breton race. In the hope of pacifying Brittany, Louis the Debonair named him count of Vannes in 819 and governor or duke of Brittany in 826. Throughout the reign of Louis, Nomenoë’s fidelity to the emperor never flagged; he put down several attempted insurrections, and maintained peace in Brittany for fifteen years. But in 841 he resolved to make himself independent of Charles the Bald. In 843 Charles made a vain attempt to subdue Brittany. In 844 Nomenoë invaded Maine, and in 845 the emperor was completely defeated at Ballon near Bain-de-Bretagne. In the following year Charles recognized the independence of Brittany. Having resolved to detach the duchy from the ecclesiastical province of Tours, Nomenoé accused the Frankish bishops of Vannes, Quimper, Dol and Léon of simony at the council of Coëtlouh in 848, replaced them by Bretons, and erected Dol into a metropolitan see. In 849 Nomenoë attacked the Frankish county of Anjou. Charles retaliated by establishing a garrison at Rennes; but Nomenoé seized Rennes, Nantes and, finally, the whole of Upper Brittany, and ravaged Maine. In 851 he seized Anjou and invaded Beauce; but he died suddenly, leaving as his successor his son Erispoë.

See A. de la Borderie, Histoire de Bretagne, vol. ii. (1898); R. Merlet, “Guerres d’indépendance de la Bretagne,” in the Revue de Bretagne, de Vendée et d’Anjou (1891).