Hoel II Kerne (Hoel II of Kernev)
c. 1031 - 1096 (age : 65)
Ruled 1066 - 1096
Count of Kernev 1058-1096, count of Naoned 1063-1096, duke-consort of Brittany (1066-1095), count of Desmumu (1080-1087) and Tuadmumu (1087-1096), King of Munster (1087-1096), reigning duke of Britanny (1095-1096)
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Son of Alan Kanhiart, Count of Kernev, and Judit Naoned
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Married to Hawiz of Brittany, sister of Duke Konan II
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Brother of Guerech, Benedic, Agnès, Hodierne, Adelendis
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Children:
- Alan IV (1066-), who follows as Duke
- Gwenn (Blanche, 1076-), who married Alan the Bastard, illegitimate son of Konan II
Hoel became count of Kernevat the death of his father in 1058 and of Naoned in 1063, when his mother, heir of the county, died later. Marrying Hawiz, the sister of Duke Konan II of Britanny, who had for years tried to conquer Hoel's father holdings, Hoel II came to a crucial importance in the peninsula on December, 11 1066. As Konan had died while he was rising against William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy (later King of England, some said he has commandited the poisoining of the Duke of Britanny) without any direct inheritants, Hawiz became Duchess of Britanny; as Duke-Consort, it was Hoel who was really holding power.
Obssessed by the old Celtic legends and, after his predecessor's death in the hands of the Normans, Hoel was willing to give Britanny its true independance and power in the troubled world of the XIth century. Devoting the few resources of his duchy to improve its facilities, tempering his vassals by adopting a purely feudal policy, Hoel made the most ambiguous and crucial decision of his whole reign, and maybe of history of Britanny: using claims coming from the late Roman Empire (which, according to the work of modern historians, had been totally invented), he decided in 1079 to claim for himself the little kingdom of Munster, one of the few realms that Ireland had in these times. King Toirrdealbeach was seriously injured during the battle of Desmumu that followed the Breton landing, and agreed to cede the county to the invaders from the continent. A second campaign, in 1087, that led to the death at the field of honour of King Muirdetach and the exile of his young son GillaPetrac, gave to the Bretons the control of the Kingdom of Munster, beginning the Breton colonization of Ireland.
His deeds deeply tarnished the reputation of duke Hoel as his country's, who quickly became known as a treacherous liar coupled with a petty king. It's the reason Guilhem VIII, duke of Aquitaine, who was then rebelling against his former liege King Philippe of France, gave to attack the little duchy of Britanny in 1090. A first attack on Poitiers, the capital of the powerful duke, led to a total Breton defeat; by luck, a little group of knights and armed peasents had managed to hide and repeatedly attack the little vanguards that the duke was sending throughout the little peninsula, after the fall of Nantes. Thanks to them, and later to reinforcements from Ireland, the Aquitains failed to take control of Cornouaille, the climax in this struggle being the defeat of the city besiegers by less than 300 Breton soldiers. In return for the whole Breton treasury, Guilhem, who was about to be vainquished by the Royal French troops, agreed to sign peace two years later.
After his wife died in 1095, Hoel II became the sole and official duke of Britanny, and tried to refill his damaged prestige by accepting pope Pius II's insistances about the superiority of Roman decisions on spiritual life in Britanny. But he didn't made the most of his full control, nor suffered of his widowood: he died the following year, in his 65th cause, of natural causes. He was succeeded by his only son, Alan, who had been governing Ireland for years on his behalf.
The question of Hoel's morality is still an object for debates and has inspired hundreds, or better say thousands of writers, playwrighters, essayists, historians, politicians, philosophers or ordinary people who were interested by what was called the "Breton miracle". Even if he has began the conquest of Ireland for treacherous reasons, it's a duty to recall that Hoel lived in troubled times. The timeframe from 1066 to 1096 was one of the most perturbed of the Middle Ages: from the early death of William the Conqueror in 1070, to the rebellions of the dukes of Aquitaine and Champagne in France...
...To the First Crusade, proclaimed by Pope Callixtus II after Rome was sacked and occupied in 1086 by the Muslim inhabitants of Sicily, who murdered Pope Alexander II; its reconquest in 1089 by King Maslaw the Pious of Poland, and the return of pope Celestine II in the Holy City by 1096...
...The fall of Byzance to the Seljuk Turks in 1092, despite the efforts of Michael VII Dukas...
...In all these events, the strengthening of Britanny was quite unnoticied.
(Gray: Britanny; Red: England; Light Blue: Scotland; Deep Blue: France; others: Welsh and Irish kingdoms)
Taken from Dictionnary of the Dukes of Britanny, Charles Spencer, London, 1983
