|
|
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
|
|
house in which they
were quartered, burnt the King in it, together with ninety men. Then came
Berdlukaare to Earl Rognvald
with a completely armed ship, and they both returned to More. The Earl
took all the ships Vernund had, and all the
goods he could get hold of. [Heimskringla, by Snorro Sturleson, trans. by
Samule Laing, 1844, chapter xii.]
Having conquered
a kingdom, Harold determined to maintain it, build it up, and guard it
against aggression. He issued an edict prohibiting raids by the
sub-ordinate Sea Kings against any lands that owed allegiance to him as
king. This was not understood by his nobles and they continued to make
their piratical expeditions whenever and wherever they believed the
expedition would yield sufficient booty to pay for the trouble. The
result was that Harold became angry and upon capture of the offending
chieftain would put him to death or where the chieftain was too powerful
to be thus dealt with, the king would banish him
from the country.
Of the petty
chieftains, many had fallen in battle, scorning to live on in disgrace; a
few became his dependents, and ruled their once independent possessions
as his vice-regents. Most left their native shores, and sought in other
lands the power they had lost at home. The movement thus begun was
furthered by the means resorted to by Harold in organizing his newly-won
domain. In the preceding times, the Vikings had not confined their
piratical incursions to foreign lands; they had plundered their own
country as well as preyed on kith and kin. [The Normans
in Europe, by Rev. A. H. Johnson.]
Now Harold
adopted vigorous measures to put down this piracy; the turbulent spirits,
driven from their own shores, swelled the forces of the exiled
chieftains. His measures affected also the peaceful proprietors who had
hitherto stayed at home. The expenses of government necessarily
increasing with its centralization, he was forced to raise money. This he
did, not only by appropriating the common lands hitherto the undivided
property of the collective tribes, and by transferring all taxes and
fines paid into the common treasury of the tribe or to the chieftain, to
the royal coffers, but also by imposing taxes on those who, till then,
had held their land in full and free ownership. Irritated at this loss of
their freedom, and in some cases perhaps unable to wring sufficient
produce from the sterile soil, many of these, the back-bone of the
Northern people, joined the other discontented spirits, and furnished an
element of stability and organization hitherto unknown in the expeditions
of the Vikings.
It is material
to note the difference between this later movement and the earlier ones
which had preceded it. The first were little more than marauding
expeditions for the sake of plunder. The pirates sailed the seas, pounced
down upon any defenseless point, harried, sacked, and burnt the place,
and were off again before any resistance could be organized. They had no
idea of forming any definite settlement, and ravaged the territories of
friend and foe alike. They were called Vikings.
The name Viking
has no connection with 'king,' being derived from Vik,
a bay, Viking, a baysman. By northern law,
every freeman was bound to be en-rolled in a Hafn,
and to contribute towards building and manning a ship for the royal
service, the office of Styresman being always
hereditary in the family of an
|
|
