The "father of Brittany". Allied with the counts of Nantes, in the ninth century he founded a unified and independent Brittany of which Briord would long be a seigneury.
Long before Briord bore that name, the land that would give birth to it already belonged to a whole then in the making: Brittany. And that Brittany was the work of one man — Nominoë.
The father of the Breton homeland
Born around 800, Nominoë (Nevenoe in Breton) was the ruler of Brittany from 845 until his death in 851. History has given him the fine title of "father of the homeland" (Tad ar Vro): it is to him that we owe the birth of a unified Brittany, distinct from the Frankish world.
The alliance with Nantes
The link with the Nantes country — and thus with the future land of Briord — is direct. To rise against the Frankish king Charles the Bald, Nominoë found a decisive ally in Lambert II, Count of Nantes. It was with the support of these forces of the West that he led his revolt.
The victory of Ballon
On 22 November 845, at the battle of Ballon, near Redon, Nominoë defeated the army of Charles the Bald, who had rashly ventured into the peninsula. Breton tradition makes this victory the founding stone of a free Brittany, united behind a single ruler.
His legacy
Nominoë died in 851. His son Erispoë would complete his work by having the independence of the kingdom recognised. For seven centuries, until its union with France, Brittany would remain a distinct entity — and Briord, a seigneury of that Brittany. Everything begins with Nominoë.