Salomon I of Armorica

Salomon I is a legendary or semi-⁠legendary ruler of Armorica, in Brittany, killed in the fifth century. He is not a canonized saint: in some parts of Brittany he was honored as a martyr, with commemoration on 25 July, but the sources at our disposal show that he was probably numbered among the saints through confusion with another ruler of Brittany, King Salomon III. We have no Orthodox act concerning him; what follows is therefore a neutral biography, resting on late Breton tradition.

The sources

He is said, according to some sources, to have been king of Armorica, according to others lord of Nantes. The traditional dates of his reign are 434-446. Our summary gives 436 as the year of death, while the Russian and Ukrainian sources give 446. Most reports about Salomon I are found in the works of Breton historians of the late Middle Ages, whose main sources were earlier tales, among them those about the origin of the noble French house of Rohan. In their final form, the tales about the first rulers of Brittany were put together in the work of the historian Alain Bouchart, of the early sixteenth century.

Until the end of the nineteenth century, historians took Bouchart's reports uncritically; then a French historian established that what is said of Conan Meriadoc and his nearest successors is partly legendary, partly literary, and corresponds very little to the historical realities of the fourth to seventh centuries.

The transmitted story

According to Bouchart and his followers, Salomon I was the son of Prince Urbien and the grandson of Conan Meriadoc, the first ruler of independent Armorica. For a long time it was believed that he succeeded his grandfather in 421 and reigned until 434, when King Gradlon the Great followed him on the throne. Later it was established that Urbien and Gradlon are one and the same person, and since then Salomon has been regarded as the third ruler of Armorica, with a reign between 434 and 446.

He was depicted as ruler of an independent kingdom, an ally of the Western Roman Empire. It is told that he was much honored by the emperor Valentinian III and his mother, Galla Placidia, that he renewed the treaty of federates with the empire and that his wife was the daughter of the Roman patrician Flavius. He is also said to have abolished the Roman law allowing the sale into slavery of the children of insolvent debtors, who until then were put up by the thousand at auction in the port of Quentovic. He is said to have waged successful wars with the Visigoths and the Alans for control of the Loire basin. Being a close relative of Saint Patrick, he is said to have supported Christianity, built new churches, founded monasteries and received with honor a holy relic, the head of the apostle Matthew. He greatly reduced the taxes of the churches, but raised those of all his subjects, hoping to maintain an army to repel attacks of outside enemies. This stirred a revolt of the Armoricans, and in 446 Salomon I was killed by his subjects, urged on by the Visigoths, at the altar of one of the churches. He is said to have died at Nantes or in the village of Le Martyr, near Landerneau.

Traditions say he was the father of three sons and a daughter: Aldrien, who inherited his Breton lands, King Constantine of Britain, Saint Cybi and Rienegilda, mother of Saint Illtud. In some regions of Brittany he was honored as a martyr (day 25 July), but probably he was numbered among the Christian saints because of mistaken identification with another ruler of Brittany who bore the same name, King Salomon III.