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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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Simple,
influenced by motives of policy, with the view of preventing them from
deriving assistance from England,
had married the daughter of Edward the Elder, son and successor to King
Alfred. Charles subsequently convened an ecclesiastical council at Trosley, in the Soissonnais,
for the purpose of consulting on the general welfare of the church and
the kingdom. The incursions of the Pagans had pre-vented the bishops and
abbots from assembling for several years past; the monasteries and episcopal sees were burnt, ravaged, and plundered;
and all these calamities were attributed by the clergy to the sins of the
princes and the people, who no longer resisted the Pagan invaders, but
disgracefully took to flight, or bowed their necks to the yoke of the
Barbarians. The archbishop of Rouen, who
lived under the rule of Rollo, wrote to consult Heriveus,
the successor of Foulk in the see of Rheims, as to the
line of conduct he ought to observe in this equivocal and difficult
position. The archbishop of Rheims
counseled his brother to be indulgent in respect to the converted Pagans,
who relapsed and returned to their old habits of idolatry and piracy. The
pope himself had written to Heriveus, to the
same effect; recommending moderation towards the Normans, who, after pretending
to be converted, turned back again to their barbarous manners and
practices, carried on a war of extermination against the Franks,
massacred the priests, and monks, and sacrificed to idols. The pontiff
very wisely concluded that the usual penalties prescribed by the canons
could not be applied to these Barbarians, to whom the yoke of the new
religion must be lightened in order to render it at all supportable by
their wild and intractable natures. Herein you have the key to all the
subsequent history of the descendants of Rollo. Down to the time they
came over to conquer England,
they were as we shall see, at all times really Pagans, yet when it suited
their purpose they were Christian. And by a strange contradiction they
were uniformly generous contributors to the material prosperity of the
church and clergy. [History of the Northmen, by
Henry Wheaton, London,
1831.]
A
general confederation of all the Normans
in France was now
formed, under the chief command of Rollo, for the purpose of penetrating the
heart of the kingdom by the streams of its three great rivers, the Seine,
the Loire, and the Garonne, and ravaging
all the intermediate country. One band ascended the Loire, burnt and
pillaged Nantz, Angers,
Tours, and other cities on the banks of
this river, whilst another marched rapidly upon Paris, to take the capital by surprise.
Charles the Simple, panic-struck at the prospect of this double invasion,
addressed himself to Francon, archbishop of Rouen, entreating
him to solicit from Rollo, his sovereign, a truce of three months.
"My kingdom is laid waste," said the monarch to the prelate,
"my subjects are destroyed or driven into exile; the fields are no
longer ploughed or sown. Tell the Norman
that I am well disposed to make a lasting peace with him,
and that if he will become a Christian, I will give him broad lands and
rich presents." Rollo readily consented to the proposal, and the
truce was strictly observed by both the Franks and the Normans, but on
the expiration of the stipulated term, the former immediately recommenced
hostilities without notifying the expiration of the truce. Rollo,
irritated by what he regarded as an act of perfidy, renewed his invasions
with increased violence and barbarity. He pushed his ravages quite to the
Loire, whilst another band of Normans
in-
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