Wihomarc (died 825) was a Breton chieftain "who seemed to have greater authority than the other Breton leaders" and who revolted against Frankish overlordship

Frankish Empire

Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...

 in 822 and held on to his power until his death. His rebellion may have been incited by the creation of a Frankish county in Poutrocoet

Poutrocoet

Poutrocoet was an early medieval pagus in Brittany. The term "Poutrocoet" is Breton, and contemporaries translated it literally into Latin as pagus trans silvam, the "country beyond the forest", as in certain charters in the cartulary of Redon Abbey...

 sometime between 818 and 820.

His was the first rebellion in Brittany since Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious

Louis the Pious , also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813...

 pacified the region after the usurpation of Morman

Morman

Morman was a Breton chieftain who was declared King after the death of the Bretons' Frankish overlord Charlemagne in 814. He is the first personage known by name to be described as a Breton "king" and he probably ruled a warband with members drawn from throughout Brittany...

 in 818. In the fall of 822, Lambert I of Nantes

Lambert I of Nantes

Lambert I was the Count of Nantes and Prefect of the Breton March between 818 to 831 and Duke of Spoleto between 834 and 836. Lambert succeeded his father Guy....

 led the other counts of the Breton march

March of Neustria

The marches of Neustria were creations of the Carolingian king of West Francia covering the ancient Merovingian kingdom of Neustria. Originally, there were two marches, one against the Bretons and one against the Norsemen created by Charles the Bald in 861. These two marches are often called the...

 against Wihomarc, but the resistance put up prevented him from being captured or killed. When the insurrection flared up again in 824, Louis himself led the armies of the Franks, which had assembled at Rennes

Rennes

Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.-History:...

 in September. This suggests that the locus of Wihomarc's power was in the north of Brittany (west of Domnonia

Domnonia

Domnonée is the modern French version of the Latin name Dumnonia , which denoted a kingdom in northern Brittany founded by migrants from Dumnonia in Great Britain...

) and not in the south and west like Morman's.

The imperial army divided into three battles

Battle (formation)

A battle or battaile was a medieval military formation, analogous and ancestral to the modern term battalion. In late medieval warfare, field armies were often drawn up into three main battles, also called guards: the vanguard, the middle guard, and the rearguard, often abbreviated to simply the...

, one led by Louis and two under the command of his sons Pepin

Pepin I of Aquitaine

Pepin I was King of Aquitaine.-Biography:He was the second son of Emperor Louis the Pious and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye....

 and Louis

Louis the German

Louis the German , also known as Louis II or Louis the Bavarian, was a grandson of Charlemagne and the third son of the succeeding Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye.He received the appellation 'Germanicus' shortly after his death in recognition of the fact...

. For six weeks the Franks ravaged Brittany, but again Wihomarc did not give up and the army returned to Rouen

Rouen

Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...

 in November. According to Regino of Prüm

Regino of Prüm

Reginon or Regino of Prüm was a Benedictine abbot and medieval chronicler.-Biography:According to the statements of a later era, Regino was the son of noble parents and was born at the stronghold of Altrip on the Rhine near Speyer at an unknown date...

, whose chronology is horribly inaccurate, Louis was defeated by the Bretons in 836, but it is the campaign of 824 which he probably has in mind. Both the Vita Hludowici and the Royal Frankish Annals

Royal Frankish Annals

The Royal Frankish Annals or Annals of the Kingdom of the Franks ,are annals covering the history of early Carolingian monarchs from 741 to 829. Their composition seems to have soon been taken up at court, providing them with markedly official character...

mention the breadth and depth of the devastation of the imperial army, but ignore the ultimate success or lack thereof of the campaign; this probably indicates it was a setback.

In May 825, Wihomarc led the other Breton leaders to Aachen

Aachen

Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

 to make peace with Louis, who pardoned them, granted them gifts, and made other concessions to them on the receiving of vows of loyalty. On his return, he was killed in his home by Lambert of Nantes for making peace with the Vikings.

As the subsequent viscounts of Léon used the name Wihomarc (Guiomar) in their family, it has been hypothesised that they descended from him.

Sources

• Smith, Julia M. H. Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians. Cambridge University Press, 1992.