ROGATION DAYS
. See LITURGICAL YEAR
ROHAN
. The small Breton community of Rohan (Morbihan) gave its name to a noble family that
has remained prominent in Brittany for nearly nine centuries. The family was founded by
Alain I, younger son of a 12th-century count of Porhoet. Known as viscounts of Rohan,
his descendants were prominent figures by 1300, with important rights over the religious
houses of the region and an administrative center at Pontivy, where their 15th-century
castle remains intact.
The wealth and influence of the Rohan family grew enormously in the late 14th and
early 15th centuries as a result of favorable marriages. Viscount Jean I (r. 1352–95)
married Jeanne, heiress to the important lordship of Léon in Brittany. Their son, Alain
VIII (d. 1429), married Beatrix de Clisson, daughter and principal heiress of the
fabulously wealthy Olivier de Clisson, constable of France, whose second wife was Jean
I’s sister. Jean I also was remarried, to a sister of Charles II of Navarre and aunt of the
duchess of Brittany. In 1407, when they came into the Clisson inheritance, Alain VIII and
Beatrix arranged for their son, Alain IX (d. 1452), to marry a sister of Duke Jean V of
Brittany. These brilliant marriages made the Rohan family the most powerful in central
Brittany. Rohan became a duchy and peerage in 1603.
John Bell Henneman Jr.
[See also: BRITTANY; CLISSON]
Gicquel, Yvonig. Alain I de Rohan (1382–1462): un grand seigneur de l’âge d’or de Bretagne.
Paris: Picollec, 1986.
Halgouet, Hervé du. La vicomté de Rohan et ses seigneurs. Paris: Champion, 1921.
ROI FAINÉANT
. The last Merovingian kings, in the first half of the 8th century, are frequently referred to
as rois fainéants, or “do-nothing” kings. This image owes a great deal to Einhard,
contemporary biographer of Charlemagne, who stressed their weakness in order to help
justify the Carolingians’ assumption of the Frankish throne; Einhard even described the
kings as going about, degraded, in ox carts rather than riding horses. Even aside from
The Encyclopedia 1525