#text in edit from Histoire de Bretagne by Arthur Le Moyne de La Borderie

[ardenrosegarden]

Hoël also showed himself to be an attentive and faithful husband: a widower at forty, after his wife had given him at least five children, he did not remarry; but he does not (apparently) take a concubine either, as J.-C. Cassard points out. Under the fine but still quite sharp pen of this author, whose seminal article helped to bring Hoël out of the shadows somewhat, this prince is nonetheless described as a dull character who suffered from events, in particular, from 1075-1076 and until 1077, the revolt of his barons, whose main military episodes were the sieges of Dol and Ancenis. This presentation, despite numerous very relevant notations, remains largely dependent on the historiography of the 19th century, in particular on the work of A. de La Borderie, particularly with regard to the pilgrimage to Rome made by Hoël, in order to “pray for the soul of his companion at the tomb of the apostles": this ducal journey would thus have taken place in 1072 at the latest in 1073, while certain Cornouaillais lords took advantage of the absence of their duke to revolt against him; however, B.-A. Pocquet du Haut-Jussé pointed out as early as 1928 that we have “no details on the cause or the result of this displacement”, the date of which is not precisely known...

Character and convictions manifest themselves immediately after the death of Princess Havoise: doubtless this disappearance aroused in Hoël an “existential” reflection, which he would have wished to submit to the recently elected pope; but instead of retiring to a monastery, a temptation to which his son Alain Fergant would eventually succumb, Hoël chose to continue living in the world to help apply in Brittany the principles of the reform desired by the new pontiff.

-André-Yves Bourgès, Propagande Ducale, Rèforme Grégorienne et Renouveau Monastique