|
|
Home
Pearsall Surname Project
Number of Pearsalls By Location
Maps by Family
Surname
History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
|
|
stantly keep in mind
that the Norse Rognvald, the Norman-French Lupus
and the English Wolf are synonymous names and that whenever in this
history the text discloses either of these names, or displays the
representation of a wolf, generally a wolf's head, it refers directly to Rognvald or to his descendants. This may be called
the key to our family history.
The descendants
of Rognvald became scattered and dwelt in many
lands where they became rulers so that it was not long before the old
name and designation had ceased to be used and each branch of the family
acquired a new family name and adopted its own insignia of arms. One of
the grandsons of Rognvald however retained the
old name and distinguishing arms. From this grandson of Rognvald descended Hugh Lupus whose arms was the wolf
head erased of the field that is to say represented as forcibly separated
from the body. So that at the very beginning of our male line of ancestry
this was our coat of arms.
In 912 Rollo
became Duke of Normandy in France; hence he felt himself
a king and really was one, so he changed his arms from the Wolf to that
of the Lion, so that this became the arms of our family. See figure No. 2
on plate of arms. About 1007 Mauger,
great-grandson of Rollo, became Count of Corbeil
and Count of Mortaigne and he changed the form
of the lion as to posture, and this new device thereby became the mark by
which we were distinguished. See figure No. 3 on plate of arms. To go
back in the history of the countship of Corbeil, it appears, according to the local tradition,
about the year 960 Count Aymon, the father of Germain, the wife of Mauger,
slew a terrible dragon in that place, when the Count of Corbeil assumed that animal as the arms or distinguish¬ing mark for his family. While there is
some doubt about the matter, neverthe¬less, the
weight of evidence seems to be that Werlac, the
son of Mauger, adopted the old arms of the
Count Aymon. The Swiss masters of Heraldry have
given considerable study to the arms of Corbeil
as achieved by Count Haymon and Werlac, and they give the authentic arms of these
noblemen as they appear in figure No. 4 on plate of arms.
In 1057, William
the Duke of Normandy, afterwards Conqueror of England, arbitrarily and
unjustly deprived our ancestor, Werlac, son of Mauger, of all his possessions and rank in Normandy
as Count of Corbeil and Count of Mortaigne, and drove him out of the country. Werlac went to Italy, where he acquired new
possessions and new arms, namely a cross Flourii,
that is a cross with the lilies of France at the end of each arm, which
must have very cleverly distinguished him among the Italian nobility, the
cross being the mark which not only repre¬sented
Normandy but his Christian faith as well, while the flower, the fleur de lis, spoke only of his dear France. See figure No. 5
on plate of arms.
About 1080
Gilbert de Corbeil, grandson of Werlac, married Isabella Lupus, daughter of Richard
de Avranches, a descendent of Hrollarf, son of Rognvald
and brother of Rollo. Hrollarf and his
descendents held to the old Insignia of the wolf head, hence the wolf
head was the arms of her family.
As a consequence
any member of the family who descended from this marriage had the right
to impale the family arms with the wolf head erased of the field, which was the arms of the Lupus or Avranches
family. See figure No. 6 on plate of arms.
|
|
