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Pearsall Surname Project
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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
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age
and nation, and made him aspire to become the founder and legislator of a
new state. But as the Franks, who still continued to live under the sceptre of Charles, had but little pacific
intercourse with the colony of Normans, planted on the banks of the
Seine, the monking chroniclers and annalists
have left no record of the particular measures by which Rollo conciliated
the affections both of his Pagan and Christian subjects, and so
effectually consolidated his power as finally to wrest from the degenerate
descendant of Charlemagne, the fairest and most fertile province of his
vast dominions.
The
Norman records inform us that Rollo was accompanied by his nephew Ornund or Rolf Thurstain,
son of his brother Hrolloff. This Rolf became
the ancestor of Richard de Goz de Avranches who married Emma the half sister of William
the Conqueror by the same mother. They in turn were the parents of our
maternal ancestor, Isabella Lupus, who married Gilbert de Corbeil. The genealogy of their line will therefore
be found in the ninth chapter of this work. Rollo was also accompanied by
his father's brother Malahulc. These together
with Rollo seem to comprehend all of the family of Rognvald
who came to Normandy.
It
seems remarkable that one alone among the many Scandinavian settlements
in Gaul was destined to play a real part
in history. This was the settlement of Rolf or Rollo at Rouen. This settlement, the kernel of
the great Norman Duchy, had, I need hardly say, results of its own and an
importance of its own which distinguish it from every other Danish colony
in Gaul. But it is well to bear in mind
that it was only one colony among several, and that, when the cession was
made, it was probably not expected to be more lasting or more important
than the others. But while the others soon lost any distinctive
character, the Rouen settlement lasted, it
grew, it became a power in Europe, and in Gaul
it became even a determining power. It is perhaps the unexpected
development of the Rouen settlement together with the peculiar turn which
Normandy policy soon took, which accounts for the bitterness of hatred
with which the Northmen of Rouen are spoken of
by the French writers down to at least the end of the tenth century. By
that time they in large part had long been Christian in faith and French
in speech, and yet the most truly French writer of the age can never
bring himself to speak of them by any other name than that of the
Pirates. This was no doubt because the Normans were so constantly
reinforced by emigration from Scandinavia that they never, prior to the
conquest of England, entirely lost their Norse habits, customs, speech
and religion. To this feeling of French hostility we see nothing at all
analogous in English history. We see traces of strong local diversities,
sometimes rising into local jealousies, between the Danes in England
and their Anglican and Saxon neighbors; but there is nothing to compare
with the full bitterness of hatred which breathes alike in the hostile rhetoric
of Richard and in the ominous silence of the discreet Flodard.
Notwithstanding the hostility of the French historians, the lasting
character of Rollo's work at once proves the founder of the Rouen colony was a
great man.
For
the next seven years the Frankish chronicles are silent respecting the
ravages of the Normans.
They still continued to occupy their strong holds on the Loire and the
Garonne, as well as the Seine. In the
meantime, Charles the
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