The first time I heard this story, my informant was a Bretonne who said that the English took over Ploermel castle while the nearby Josselin castle was held by Bretons. The garrisons were so close to each other that soldiers found it difficult to hunt their dinner without running into the other side, and for the rest of the time they were cooped up indoors and getting bored. So they arranged a duel between the garrisons to settle who controlled the area. Thirty men from each side fought each other. The last man left standing was a Breton, so the Bretons won and the English had to leave.
The real story is a little different.
Duke Jean III of Brittany died in 1341 leaving no children. But his deceased brother Guy de Penthièvre had had a daughter, Jeanne who claimed the duchy. She’d married Charles of Blois, a nephew of the king of France, so the French supported her candidacy (or from their point of view, the right of Charles de Blois to become duke of Brittany).
But Jean III’s father had married twice, and Jean III’s powerful and well-connected stepmother Yolande had a son, Jean de Montfort. This half-brother claimed the dukedom on the grounds that a woman couldn’t inherit it. Duke Jean III had in fact paid homage to the king of France (for his lands in France) and his half-brother claimed that meant the French law which barred women from the throne also applied to the dukedom.
At the time England and France were at war. The English king Edward III claimed the throne of France and sent his armies marauding through France under command of the Black Prince. So since the French king supported Jeanne and Charles de Blois, the English king automatically supported the rival claimant Jean de Montfort. This is ironic in fact, as Edward’s claim to the throne of France included descent through a woman, but political expediency doesn’t have to make sense. In 1345 Jean de Montfort died, but he left a six-year old son, also Jean, so the war continued with the English now claiming regency of the duchy during the boy’s minority.
The Bretons split into two camps – the Blésists, for Jeanne and Charles de Blois with French support, and the Montfortists, for Jean with English support. They were evenly matched. Breton garrisons of castles in the Montfort camp were greatly reinforced by the younger sons of the English aristocracy and foreign mercenaries; the Blois garrisons were mostly Breton with a few mercenaries. But life in a castle didn’t suit the warriors of either side. They’d been bred to fight, not sit still. So Jean de Beaumanoir, captain of Josselin for Charles de Blois, sent a challenge to Robert of Bamburgh, English captain of Ploermel supporting Jean de Montfort, for the two garrisons to meet and fight to a conclusion. They agreed thirty men each and a time and place – Saturday 26 March 1351 at the Halfway Oak. The soldiers arrived on horseback, but intended to fight on foot.
I’ve read a description of them sword-fighting in a series of duels, with the winner going on to fight another winner until there was only one side was left standing. It wasn’t like that at all. The combatants started by charging all together at the other side in a muddy, bloody confusion in which several men were wounded and a few killed. After half an hour an interval was agreed; everyone took a breather and drank wine to recover. Then the mêlée started again, and immediately a Breton, Alan de Kerantais, put a spear through the English leader Bamburgh and killed him (that confirms that this wasn’t a sword fight).
But killing the leader did no good; Bamburgh’s second-in-command, the German mercenary Croquart, took over the Montfortists and formed them into a tightly-packed group in centre field, sword and spears pointing outwards in “hedgehog” formation. This was impregnable to foot-soldiers, so the Blésist Guillaume de Montauban jumped on his horse and charged into the hedgehog with a long lance. His co-fighters used the opening he created to kill and injure enough Montfortists for that side to give in.
The score was Montfortists of Ploermel 17 dead or dying, Blésists of Josselin 8 dead or dying, so the Blésists “won”. But they didn’t win anything substantial. The Josselin troops immediately besieged Ploermel castle but didn’t succeed in taking it, and guerilla war continued for another ten years all over Brittany.
In 1364 Jean, son of Jean de Montfort, now twenty-five, arrived at the head of an army of Bretons, English and mercenaries and brought Charles de Blois to battle at Auray, where Charles was killed. In 1365 Jean de Montfort was recognised as duke Jean IV of Brittany and the war ceased. The Montfortists had won the dukedom.
But they hadn’t won the Battle of the Thirty, which was for hundreds of years celebrated as a symbol of Breton supremacy to all other nations in the age of chivalry.
Chivalry? It was more like a football-supporters’ brawl than knightly combat.
But there’s an elegant column on the site of the Halfway Oak, erected by Ploermel council, reinforcing the legend of chivalry as later ages prefer to remember it.
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