Planting a Garden: King Morvan I of Breizh 768-797

"They were birthed of monsters, sea monsters!  

They are of the sea, and it is back into the sea where I shall drive them!"

-King Sunnesisil, Boy King of France, 822 AD

Birth of Morvan the Gardener, Sixteenth Century

History is blurry on the origins of Morvan the Gardener.  His house is remembered as de La Mer, originally a slur leveled at the Breton warriors and subjects by hostile French and Frankish heathens, the moniker was embraced by Morvan's sons after crushing the French at Evreux in 812.  French propaganda and slurs depicted them as the seed of seamonsters, claiming the Bretons had been birthed by the sea in the manner of the Beast of Revelation.  This legend was adopted and adapted by the celtic peoples to give epic, almost pagan origins to their great gardener.  The man who grew a nation and tended it, setting it up for wealth and prestige.

 The realities of Morvan's reign are much less fantastical, but no less interesting. Records of his life begin in 768 when he ascended to the throne of Domnonia.  It is unclear exactly through what means he assumed power, but it is in 768 where myth and history collide and concrete records exist of the happenings in northwestern Europe due to careful records kept by monks close to the court.  At 34 Morvan was a man known for his ambition.  He intended to unite the Celtic peoples of the Armorican peninsula and to push out the Germans and Franks who had come to dominate the region due to the Hammer's war against the Muhammadans.  The Franks were strange and different, and their dommineering control over Europe allowed them to stifle the Breton remaining Celtic peoples.  Morvan dreamed of pushing them out, and claiming the land from Leon to Burgundy for Celtic peoples to govern and live.  Though determined, Morvan was patient, and knew that a brash assault on the barbarians would mean their ruin.  a new Frankish king sat on the throne, Charles, son of Pepin, bickered with his brother over the right to oppress Europe.  While the great Frankish roosters pecked at one another, Morvan found a friend in the Lombard king and sought his daughter in marriage.

The southerner was religious, devloting much of her time to studying holy texts.... and much less time with Morvan himself.  She could not speak Brezhoneg and never learned.  Their marriage served as poltical insurance for Morvan, he could operate in the peninsula without having to worry about the Frankish powers interfering.  

     Unfortunately the Princesses' sister had web another Breton count, Bedric of Broerce.  Fortunately the king of Lombardy did not take sides when the two nations came to blows in 770.  The fight was inevitable, as Morvan's goal was to unite all of Aromica and the the tributary money of Bedric's lands would only help secure his place while also depleting Bedric's power on the continent.  Peace was sign on December 13 of 770, when Bedric arrived in Domnonia and declared his support for Morvan as leader of Brittany, offering his tribute.  The feast that followed ushered in a peaceful decade.  But as Morvan sat at the least table, relishing in wine and roast duck he could not have guessed the horrors that would come when the winter snows began to melt.

Karloman died of illness in March and his older brother reunited the empire of their father.  Morvan's worst nightmare was realized.  A united Francia meant ruin for the Celtic peoples of continental Europe.  Chearles' new empire was not without its problems.  The empire was assaulted by pagans in the east and Muhammadans in the south while internal strife kept the king from seizing total power.  While many of the other Breton counts sent men to die in Charles wars, Morvan waited and watched.  His kinsmen referred to the bible and the common struggle against the pagans, but Morvan had always been cynical, and thought more often of this life than the next.  While he had his disagreements with the clergy, Morvan was not foolish enough to attack knights defending Christ.  Such an act would have made him an enemy of all Christians, including the sleeping giant with which he shared a southern border.    

Not all was bad however, Morvan was graced with a son in the hot summer of 772.  The boy was named Arzhul and a feast was throne in his honor.

  The boy inspired the count, who sent his councilor Concen west to Kernev.  He claimed there were documents linking his family to the land and these papers would be critical in claiming the land as his own.

After nearly a decade of searching a rider arrived at the castle gates.  Morvan almost did not recognize his old chancellor.  Chancellor Concen looked weary and a long beard had grown on his formerly young face.  The two met in the library of Morvan's keep.  Arzhul played happily with his younger sister by the fire as the two men spoke in hushed tones.  Morvan untied and rolled out the old scroll he had been brought.  A family tree with his grandfather's shield.  Surely this would be enough to claim Kernev.  There was talk of war and of the future, the king wished his wife was there to help him make such a huge decisions, but her lungs had failed her nearly six years earlier and the girl-princess Karling who had been promised to him was no more fit to discuss such subjects than his own children.  He would secure inheritance for his son in these tough times by formalizing the rules of succession under primogeniture and would march on Kernev in early summer.  

Come May when the armies met, Morvan discovered Count Custintin  hired a band of Magyar mercenaries led by an adventuring prince.  Morvan himself led the vanguard against these eastern warriors and crushed them in the battle of Monokontour in 781.  Experiencing the battles in the west firsthand, Morvan became a master of fighting on the plains of the peninsula.

       

Unfortunately not all was well in western Europe.  As Morvan and his retainers celebrated their new majority in the peninsula in their new keep, the French King had lost control of some of his subjects.  The Pagan Saxons had declared idenpendence and won.  Their wretched king claimed lands as far west as Nantes, conflict was inevitable.  

The next decade is remembered as "the sad years."  Beginning in 786 Berdic was attacked by the Saxons, their warriors flooded across the border pillaging good Celtic Christians as they passed.  Morvan was presented with the news as he sat in his study writing poetry with his young wife Id Karling, daughter of the late Karloman.  She was pregnant and Morvan had been working on the perfect poem to welcome the young Breton into the world.  The couple was war weary, as Morvan had just won a successful campaign against the count of Leon who questioned Morvans divine right as protector of the Breton people.  The decorations had not yet been removed from the great feasting hall when Morvan convened his councilors to discuss fighting the pagans.  They would have to aid their tributary in the south.  It was their duty!   

Despite the aid of the Lombard King and the King of Merica the war was swiftly over.  By December the Saxon's had crushed the armies of all the defenders and occupied much of the peninsula.  While Morvan had been away fighting in the south his wife died giving birth to a second son, Meldroc.  Morvan remarried the daughter of the count of Cornwall.  In 788 an even greater terror came to Domnonia....

A monk records poetry as Morvan recites on his sickbed.

Consumption arrived in Domnonia in 787, brought from the east by the Saxon raiders.  Nearly half the court was taken by the disease.  The royal family had been largely safe from the illness, but in 788 the young baby Meldroc fells ill.  Several days later, Morvan, while tending a small garden he had planted on the castle grounds wiped sweat from his brow with a rag.  It was a hot summer day and he found himself feeling warm and short of breath.  A horrible coughing fit beset him.  His son Arzhul rushed to his side, and helped steady his father.  When the count looked down at the rag into which he had been coughing it was stained red.

The king spent the aunumn and winter in his sickbed.  He honed his poetry skills from his quarters, even having his court chaplain record his musings when he was too sick to write.  He priest assured the aging king not to worry, for rewards awaited him in the next life, but the count dismissed his chaplain.  His poetry had gotten sad and he feared that through his life of cynicism there would be no place for him when he took the long sleep.  He king wrote out a prayer in verse, promising to push back the pagans if he was given a second chance.  The poem was read aloud the next Sunday.  While church records of the Bishop claim it was beautiful, the priest made no effort to preserve the actual verse, citing that he was sure the next time he heard it, it would be from an angle in heaven.  

As a new decade began, the winds began to change.  A cool breeze blew in from the coast and Morvan found himself feeling better.  

   Such a gift surely was a sign from God.  Morvan remembered the promise he made and called a meeting of his council to discuss revenge on the Saxon menace.  In 789 the King of Saxony was plauged by wars in the east.  His holdings in Brittany ride for the taking.  As Morvan crossed into Saxon territory with his host he recieved news that his wife had given birth to a daughter and that his son's marriage to the daughter of a Pictish count was secure.  His grandchildren would be true Celts.  Morvan's eldist daughter had been wed to Charles' hunchbacked bastards and the French King sent nominal troops to aid in the Breton cause.  Many early victories were won and it was clear god was on the side of the Bretons.  In 790 the Saxon King died of Leprosy, leaving a young minor on the throne.  The boy-king's tribal council came before Morvan offering peace.  Morvan accepted, denouncing them and banishing the Saxon's from the west.

    

A huge feast was throne in Monkontour.  As the wine flowed Morvan stood and recited a poem of a great garden of Gual.  It was a garden built for the Celtic people to thrive.  He would serve as the great gardener, a man to guild the people to a new era.  Hall echoed with the cheers of his guests as the aging count finished his poem.  As Morvan bowed his court Chaplain appeared in the back of the room.  In his hands he held a pillow.  The pillow supported a bronze crown that had been taken during the sac of Nantes.  The Bishop placed the crown on Morvan's head and the man stood proclaiming himself King of Breizh.

The aging King turned his focus inward.  He needed to consolidate power and amass wealth.  The sad years had taken their toll on the coffers and their bought against the Saxon's had shown how weak and unorganized their military was.  Morvan met with his generals and worked at a restructuring in the ways in which peasants were trained, offering them more general experience.  His hope was that if the men were better trained for war, they would fight harder and with more vigor.  The new reforms were tested against the count of Leon, a young boy who dared not meet the tribute payments his father had offered Morvan for the past decade.  The reforms were effective and Leon was vassalized by the new King.  Little did they know the fledgling kingdom would face a new threat...  

It was a small town in Kernev that was first hit.  the dragon-shaped boats were seen crashing over the waves with horrible fury.  Morvan was furious, they had defeated the Saxons on land only for their cousins to arrive by sea.  In response the King built forts around the peninsula, expanded his castles, and gave fierce resistance to the raiders.

Morvan spent much of the rest of his life locked away within his castle with one notable exception.

    

   Morvan and his steward made a long trek to Sijilmasa, where the local Sheikh set up a lucrative trading agreement with the Breton King.  Morvan was sure to not bring meddling priests along for the visit in an effort to reduce tensions with the Muhammadan.  Morvans fears rested in the barbarian armies of the north and west rather than in warm lands of the south.  He had nothing to fear from these people, as they wanted for nothing, so different from the desparate raiders arriving on their shores from the frozen north.  

 Morvan's gardens were the envy of western Europe.  With the barbarians pushed away and the garden of Breizh safe from foreign rule Morvan had time to tend his real passions and hobbies.  He spent countless hours in his garden, adonring it with lavish statues and plants from his far away travels.  It was the envy of Europe and Bretons came to know him as "the Gardener."

believed to be what is left of Morvan's private gardens in northern Monkontour

It was late in a warm May evening when Morvanbreathed his final breath.  The king was found in the study of a small northern palace he had built in Monkontour.  The study sat at the top of a small tower overlooking his garden.  An unfinished poem graced the paper on the table.  The gardener had fostered great growth for the petty kingdom of Breizh, and the responisbility for its care now rested with his son.