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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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these
terms of pacification, only he objected to the lands offered to him, that
the country was already ruined and desolate, and incapable of subsisting
his army. The king then offered him Flanders, to which he also objected,
as being too marshy, and in order to content him, Brittany,
a province, of which the sover¬eignty did not
belong to Charles, was added to the territory proposed to be ceded to the
Normans.
"Thus, Charles," says an old Breton historian and lawyer,
"ceded to Rollo the ancient quarrel respecting the sovereignty of
Brittany; not that he designed that Rollo should succeed in what both he
and all his predecessors of the Carlovingian
line had failed to accomplish, but he might perchance by this means,
regain the said dominions, tenancy, and arriere-fief,
without cost and charge to himself, and if he had lost his new son-in-law
in the contest, it would have been just what he wished; he would then
have reclaimed Normandy, and with it the homage of Brittany, and if this
should not happen, as in fact it did not, things would remain just where
they were, and he would neither gain nor lose.
The
basis of the treaty being thus agreed to on both sides, King Charles and
Rollo, chief of the Normans, had an interview at the village of
Saint-Clair, on the Epte, for the purpose of
putting a finishing hand to the negotiation. Rollo and his companions
came to one side of the river, whilst the king and his barons remained on
the other. Here King Charles and Robert, duke of the Franks, the counts,
and the great crown vassals, the bishops and the abbots, confirmed by
their oaths the cession made to Rollo, whilst the chief of the Normans
took the feudal oath of fealty, placing his hands between those of the
king, in token of homage for the duchy of Normandy. At sight of the
commanding person, the martial and dignified air, of the Norman
chieftain, the Franks acknowledged with one voice that he was a man well
becoming the great seigniory he was to hold. He
refused to submit to the degrading ceremony of kissing the king's foot,
but deputed one of his followers to perform this part of the homage in
his stead. The insolent Barbarian lifted up the king's foot, which he
offered- him to kiss, so high that Charles was thrown backward on the
ground, to the great amusement of the spectators; an incident which would
hardly seem credible were it not vouched for by the unanimous testimony
of all the historians of the time, both Franks and Normans. The Normans of later
date appealed to this event to show that they held their country of no
higher sovereign in chief, but of God alone, and were proud of an insult
offered with impunity to a descendant of the great Emperor of the West.
After
this scene, Charles the Simple returned to his own dominions, whilst
Rollo was accompanied to Rouen by Duke Robert, where, according to the
cleric historians, he was baptized by the archbishop Francon,
Duke Robert being his godfather, whose Christian name he took; but
Professor Kilvert points out that the church
records fail to disclose any such event, being absolutely silent as to
the change of name, although the historians say many of the Frankish
nobility were present at this ceremony. Those who refused, at this time
to be baptized, received presents of arms, money, and horses, and went
whither they would, beyond the seas, to return to their own native land,
or to pursue their career of wild and lawless adventure. This all sounds
very nice. Yet the grandson of
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