Ridoredh RidoredhThe fact that the Breton rulers Pascweten and Alain le Grand were brothers is confirmed by contemporary sources [e.g., Regino, MGH SS 1: 587]. The only source to give the name of the father of Pascweten and Alain is an eleventh century Angevin collection of genealogies, which gives Ridoredh as the name of the father of Pascuithen (legitimate) and Alanus maior (bastard) [Poupardin (1900), 206, who, however, does not show the lines indicating Ridoredh as the father of Pascweten and Alain, which are quite clear in the manuscript itself]. Nothing further is known of Ridoredh. Although some ninth century Breton charters have very obscure men of this name (or minor variants) as witnesses, none can be confidently identified with the father of Pascweten and Alain. Although it is virtually certain that the father of Pascweten and Alain was a member of the Breton aristocracy, there is no apparent justification for assigning any specific title to Ridoredh, as is done by some modern secondary sources [e.g., Winkhaus (1950)].
Date of Birth: Unknown.
Place of
Birth: Unknown.
Date of Death: Unknown.
Place of
Death: Unknown.
Father: Unknown.
Mother: Unknown.
Spouse(s): Unknown.
Legitimate son:
Pascweten, d. prob. 877 (or late 876),
princeps Britanniae, joint ruler of Brittany,
874-876×7, m. Prostlon, daughter
of Salomon, king of Brittany. [Annales
Bertiniani s.a. 867: "... Paswithen gener Salomonis
...", MGH SS 1: 474; Cart. Redon 209 (name of wife)]
Along with a certain Gurvand, Pascweten was joint ruler of
Brittany after the death of king Salomon. [Regino, MGH SS 1:
586-7, whose chronology is faulty; For the
chronology, see de la Borderie (1890), 575-7]
Illegitimate son:
Alain I le Grand, d. 907, count of Vannes, duke/king of Brittany.
Cart. Redon = M. Aurélien de Courson, Cartulaire de l'Abbaye de Redon (Collection de documents inédites sur l'histoire de France, Paris, 1863).
de la Borderie (1864, 1890) = Arthur de la Borderie, "Examen chronologique des chartes du cartulaire de Redon antérieur du XIe siècle", Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes 25 (1964): 259-282, 393-434 [reprinted in Annales de Bretagne 5 (1889-90): 535-630]. Page numbers given are from the latter work.
MGH SS = Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores series.
Poupardin (1900) = René Poupardin, "Généalogies angevines du XIe siècle", Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire (Paris, Rome) 20 (1900):199-208. I would like to thank James Hansen, FASG, for providing me with a copy of this article, and Nathaniel Taylor for providing a copy of the manuscript page itself (Bib. Apost. Vat., Reg. Lat. 1285, f. 65v).
Winkhaus (1950) = Eberhard Winkhaus, Ahnen zu Karl dem Grossen und Widukind (Ennepetal-Altenvoerde (Westfalen), 1950).
Compiled by Stewart Baldwin
Uploaded 17 December 2005.