Aldroen


Aldroen was a legendary king of the Bretons of Armorica.

Legendary biography

Aldroen appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century Historia regum Britanniae as Aldroenus, the "fourth king after Conan" to rule over Brittany. Archbishop Guithelin of London offered him the throne of the island of Britain which he refused, but he sent his younger brother Constantine with 2,000 men to free it from Picts and Huns, and Constantine became king under the name of Constantine II.
In Old Gaulish he was called Aldroen ap Selyfan, meaning "son of Salomon". He is therefore considered the son of Salomon I of Armorica, 1st king of Brittany, and of Flavia ferch Patricius Flavius, meaning "Flavia daughter of the patrician Flavius" in Gallic. According to tradition, he took up arms against the Romans and drove them out of Nantes, Guérande, Saint-Malo and Léon, and then advanced into the Orléanais.
He married an Irish princess and the historian Pierre-Hyacinthe Morice de Beaubois recorded as his children:
The Cambrian or second Meigant was son of Gwyndaf hen, son of Emyr Llydaw, the nephew of St. German, Bishop of Man, by his sister, the wife of Aldor, or Aldroen, King of Armorica.

Legendary founder of Châtelaudren

According to the 15th-century Cronicques et ystoires des Bretons by Pierre Le Baud:
In a more recent work Stéphane Morin challenges the role attributed by tradition to Aldroen of founder of the city of Châtelaudren: