Beginning in the early 9th century, just like the rest of Frankia, the Frankish vassal state of Brittany, in the far north-west, came under intense and sustained attacks from Scandinavian raiders.

Unlike the more prosperous hinterlands of the Frankish elites, the remote coastal territory of

Brittany had to mostly go it alone against the newcomers, which it did for the next hundred years and more,

amidst periodical bouts of dynastic squabbles of its own. Brittany's Viking age was an epic struggle,

seeing the embattled Celtic inhabitants of the region attacked from all sides, and even conquered

outright for over two decades by an incoming Scandinavian warrior elite.

Yet it was also a struggle that saw the re-emergence of a strong and unified Brittany, cementing

its newfound position as one of the major players of

northern France over the coming centuries.

In the wake of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, the Frankish

tribes who usurped the administration of Gaul eventually managed to form the most powerful

success estate. Though unlike the Roman office of Caesar, which went hand in hand with ruling over the

entire realm, the Franks still practiced the ancient custom of patrilineal inheritance, divided

between sons, meaning that upon the death of a ruler, no matter how great their success is in unifying or expanding the kingdom,

his lands would almost always be divided between rival sons.

The great Carolingian ruler Charlemagne was no exception, and though he attempted to give sole control

to his son Louis the Pius, the tradition was simply too ingrained for a power struggle not to play out,

especially after the vast expanses of new lands brought under Frankish control by Charlemagne.

This fratricidal struggle and the gradual collapse of the Carolingian Empire coincided with the coming of a ferocious new power,

a power that was all too happy to exploit the divided states they found on their southern flank.

The age of the Vikings had begun.

Upon the official division of Charlemagne's Francia into two autonomous eastern and western kingdoms

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