Jarnitine

Probably Zharnitin came from a noble Breton clan who owned the Lisbidou fortress near the Carantoir . Beginning in 790, it was repeatedly mentioned in documents that have survived to this day as part of the cartulary of the Redon Abbey ^[2] . Since 797, the charters published by him have been titled him “ruler” ( Bret. Machtiern ). The presence in these acts of dating according to the years of the reign of the King of the Frankish State , Charlemagne, allows historians to assume that at the end of the VIII - beginning of the IX centuries Zharnitin recognized himself as a vassal of the ruler of the Franks ^[3] . Also, historical sources do not contain any information about the participation of Zharnitin in the anti-Frankish speeches of the Bretons in 799 and 811 ^[4] .

However, one of the charters from Bath , dated either December 813 or 814, contains a record that it was issued in the "year of the reign of Emperor Karl, in the reign of [King] Jarnitin and Count Guy and under Bishop Isaac " ^[5] . Based on it, historians suggest that at that time Zharnitin was proclaimed by the Bretons as his king. Later Breton sources considered him the legitimate successor of Charlemagne in Brittany . It is not known what territory Jarnitin’s power extended to: the mention of Franks and Count Nantes in the document of the emperor may indicate that, at least in Bath, the legitimacy of his claims to the royal title had both supporters and opponents. Probably, the reign of Zharnitin lasted only a short time, since already in 818 the title “King of Brittany”, according to the “ Annals of the Kingdom of the Francs ”, was owned by Morvan ^[3] .

Jarnitin passed away in 821. His sons, Gourville and Portitoë, inherited the possession of their father ^[2] .