• General Notes

  [316552.ftw]
  
  ES 11:79;PED OF AUGUSTINE H. AYERS
  See Historical Document.
  
  TITL EuropE Fische Stammtafeln REPOCALNMEDI BookPAGE Bund II tafel 36ALIA Rolf (Rollo) the Ga nger Ragnvaldsson /of Norway
  _FA1 PLAC 1st Duke of Normandy.  Rec'd. Normandy under Treaty of St. Claire, 911.
  _FA2 PLAC AKA Rolf (Rollo) the Ganger Ragnvaldsson of Norway.
  _FA3 PLAC Acknowledged vassal by Charles the Simple & baptised (abt 911), per the Treaty.
  _FA4 PLAC Left Norway for reaving and conquest on continent (870).
  _FA5 PLAC Known as "The Old Pirate".  Count of Rouen by conquest 876.
  _FA6 PLAC Banished from Norway by King Harald to the Hebrides abt 876.
  _FA7 PLAC Called the "Ganger" as he was so large no horse could carry him & he had to walk
  _FA8PLAC Interred:  Notre Dame, Rouen, France.
  _FA9PLAC Ferocious disposition.  Charles the Simple could not beat him.
  _FA10 PLAC Founder of Normandy.  Later sources identify this Hrolf with Rollo of Normandy, a n extremely doubtful identification. It is unlikely that there was any close relationship bet ween the early dukes of Normandy and the Orkney Jarls, and Rollo's parentage is unknown.  Her e are my notes on ROLLO, which I send in  connection with a message sentby Stewart Baldwin i n which he says he suspects.   As you can see, this isn't quite right.Gordon Fisher     gfish er@@shentel.net
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  27th ggf of  Gordon FisherOr:  HROLFR the GANGER (walker), GANGE-ROLV, ROLF, ROLLO OF NORMAND Y; and later in life, ROBERT; also HRO'LFR"The central fact of Norman history ... is ... th e grant of Normandy and hisnorthern followers in the year 911.
    ...  For the actual occurences of that year, we have only the account of a romancing histor ian of a hundred years later, reenforced here and there by the exceedingly scanty records o f thetime.  The main fact is clear, namely that the Frankish king, Charles theSimple, grante d Rollo as a fief a considerable part, the eastern part, oflater Normandy.  Apparently Roll o did homage for his fied in feudal fashionby placing his hands between the hands of the king , something, we are told,which "neither his father, nor his grandfather, nor his great-grandf atherbefore him had ever done for any man."  Legend goes on to relate, ho wever,that Rollo re fused to kneel and kiss the king's foot, crying out in his ownspeech, "No, by God!" and tha t the companion to whom he delegated the unwelcome obligation performed it so clumsily that h e overturned the king,to the great merriment of the assembled Northmen.  ...  As to Rollo'spe rsonality, we have only the evidence of later Norman historians ofdoubtful authority and th e Norse saga of HArold Fairhair.  If, as seemslikely, their accounts relate to the same perso n, he was known in the northas Hrolf the Ganger, because he was so huge that no horse could c arry himand he must needs gang afoot.  A pirate at home, he was driven into exile bythe ange r of King Harold, whereupon he followed his trade in the WesternIsles and in Gaul, and rose t o be a great Jarl among his people.  The sagamakes him a Norwegian, but Danish scholars hav e sought to prove him a Dane,and more recently the cudgels have been taken up for his Swedis h origin. Tome the NOrwegian theory seems on the whole the most probable, being based on a tr ustworthy saga and corroborated by other incidental evidence.  ... Theimportant fact is tha t Norway, Denmark, and even more distant Sweden, all contributed to the colonists who settle d in Normandy under Rollo and his successors, and the achievements of the Normans thus becom e the commonherit age of the Scandinavian race.  (P) The colonization of Normandy was, ofcour se, only a small part of the work of this heroic age of Scandinavianexpansion.  The great emi gration from the North in the ninth and tenthcenturies has been explained in part by the grow th of centralized governmentand the consequent departure of the independent, the turbulent, a nd theuntamed for new fields of adventure; but its chief cause was doubtless thatwhich lies b ack of colonizing movements in all ages, the growth ofpopulation and the need of more room .  Five centuries earlier thisland-hunger had pushed the Germanic tribes across the Rhine an d Danube andproduced the great wandering of the peoples which destroyed the Romanempire; an d the Viking raids were simply a later aspect of this same *Vo"lkerwanderung*, retarded by th e outlying position of the Scandinavianlands  and by the greater difficulty of migration by s ea. For, unlike theGoths who swept across the map of Europe in vast curves of marching men, o rthe Franks who moved forward by slow stages of gradual settlement in theiroccupation of Roma n Gaul, the Scandinavian invaders were men of the sea andmigrated in ships."
  --- Charles Homer Haskins, *The Normans in European History*, Boston & NY, 1915, p 26-30 pass im.  From p 48 & 50:  "At this point the fundamentalquestion forces itself upon us, how far w as Normandy affected byScandinavian influences?  What in race and language, in law and custom , wasthe contribution of the north to Normandy?  And the answer must be that inmost respect s the tangible contribution was slight.  Whatever may have beenthe state of affairs in the ag e of colonization and settlement, by thecentury which followed the Normans had become to a su rprising degreeabsorbed by their environment.  .....  What, then, was the Scandinavian contri bution to the making of Normandy if it was neither law nor speech norrace?  First and foremos t, it was Normandy itself, created as a distinctentity by the Norman occupation and the gran t to Rollo and his followers, without whom it would have remained an undifferentiated part o f northern France. Next, a new element in the population, numerically small inproportion to t he ass, but a leaven to the whole --- quick to absorbFrankish law and Christian culture but r etaining its northern qualities ofenterprise, of daring, and of leadership.  It is no acciden t that the namesof the leaders in early Norman movements are largely Norse.  And finally arac e of princes, high-handed and masteful but with a talent for politicalorganization, state-bui lders at home and abroad, who made Normandy thestrongest and most centralized principality i n France and joined to it akingdom beyond the seas which became the strongest state in wester n Europe.""GANGER ROLF, "the Viking" (or ROLLO), banished from Norway to the Hebridesca. 876 , 890 participated in Viking attack on Bayeux, where Count Berengerof Bayeux was killed, an d dau. Poppa captured and taken, 886,  by Rollo (nowcalled Count of Rouen) as his "Danish" wi fe.  Under Treaty of St. Claire,911, rec'd the Duchy of Normandy from CHARLES III, "the Simpl e"; d. ca. 927(Isenburg says 931), bur. Notre Dame, Rouen. ... Note: Isenburg inserts a Rober t between Rollo and William I, and makes Robert the conqueror ofBayeux, husb. of Poppa, and 1 st Duke.  Chronology favors the descent givenby Moriarty and Onslow.  It seems probable tha t Robert was another name for Rollo.  If there really was a Robert as 1st Duke, then [ROBER T I] would beROBERT II, which is not the case.  For additional data on William II ofNormand y and I of England the reader may consult David C. Douglas, *Williamthe Conqueror* (1964).  B esides a dau. Gerloc (or Adela) who m. 935 WILLIAMI ... Count of Poitou, Ganger Rolf had [WIL LIAM I, "Longsword"]."--- Weis & Sheppard, *Ancestral Roots ... *, 7th Edition, 1992, p 110"R ollo (Rollon, Ranger Rolf [sic, instead of Ganger], 1st Duke of Normandy,Count of Rouen; conq uered Normandy; b. c870, Maer, Norway, d. 927-932; md(2) 891 Poppa de Bayeux, Duchess of Norw ay; b. c872, Bayeux, France; dauBerenger de Bayeux, Count of Bayeux; d. bef. 930; and N.N. o f Rennes."--- Roderick W Stuart, *Royalty for Commoners*, 2nd edn, 1992, p 123-124
  The definitive establishment of the Normans, to whom the country owesits name, took place i n 911, when by the treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte,concluded between King Charles the Simple o f France and Rolf or Rollo, chiefof the Normans, the territory comprising the town of Rouen a nd a few 'pagi'situated on the sea-coast was ceded to the latter; but the terms of thetreat y are ill-defined, and it is consequently almost impossible to find outthe exact extent of th is territory or to know whether Brittany was at thistime made a feudal dependency of Normandy .  But the chronicler Dudo ofSaint-Quentin's statement that Rollo married Gisela, daughter o f Charles theSimple, must be considered to be legendary work of Dudo of Saint-Quentin[who?] i s practically our only authority.Rollo died in 927 and was succeeded by his son William ...-- - (Source ???)
  "Charles [the Simple], the son-in-law of eEward, constrained thereto byRollo, through a succe ssion of calamities, conceded to him that part of Gaulwhich at present is called Normandy.  I t would be tedious to relate for howmany years, and with what audacity, the Normans disquiete d every place fromthe British ocean, as I have said, to the Tuscan sea.  First Hasten, andthe n Rollo; who, born of noble lineage among the Norwegians, though obsoletefrom its extreme ant iquity, was banished, by the king's command, from hisown country, and brought over with multi tudes, who were in danger, eitherfrom debt or consciousness of guilt, and whom he had allure d by greatexpectations of advantage.  Betaking himself therefore to piracy, after hiscruelt y had raged on every side at pleasure, he experienced a check atChartres.  For the townspeopl e, relying neither on arms nor fortifications, piously impoored the assistance of the blesse d Virgin Mary.  The  shift too of the virgin, which Charles the Bald displayed to the winds o n the samparts, thronged by the garrison, after the fashion of a banner.  The enemy on seein g it began to laught, and to direct their arrows at it.  This,however, was not done with impu nity; for presently their eyes became dim,and they could neither retreat nor advance.  The to wnsmen, with joy perceiving this, indulged themselves in a plentiful slaughter of them, as fa r as fortune permitted.  Rollo, however, whom God reserved for the truefaith, escaped, and so on after gained Rouen and the neighboring cities byforce of arms, in the year of our Lord 876 , and one year before the death ofCharles the Bald, whose grandson Lewis, as is before mentio ned, vanquishedthe Normans, but did not expel them; but Charles, the brother of that Lewis,gr andson of Charles the Bald, by his son Lewis,  as I have said aboce,repeatedly experiencing , from unsuccessful conflicts, that fortune gave himnothing which she took from others, resol ved, after consulting his nobility,that it was advisable to make a show of royal munificence , when he wasunable to repel injury; and, in a friendly manner, sent for Rollo.  He wasat thi s time far advanced in years; and, consequently, easily inclined to pacific measures.  It wa s therefore determined by treaty, that he should bebaptized, and hold that country of the kin g as his lord.  The inbred anduntameable ferocity of the man may well be imagined, for, on re ceiving this gift, as the by standers suggested to him, that he ought to kiss the foot ofhi s benefactor, disdaining to kneel down, he seized the king's foot anddragged it to his mout h as he stood erect.  The king falling on his back,the Normans began to laugh, and the Frank s to be indignant; but Rolloapologized for his shameful conduct, by saying that it was the cu stom of hiscountry.  Thus the affair being settled, Rollo returned to Rouen, and theredied."- -- William of Malmesbury, *Chronicle of the Kings of England*, c 1135,tr John Allen Giles, Lo ndon (Henry G Bohn) 1847, p 125-126"It is not known when Rollo arrived in the Viking kingdo m [in Normandy].Dudo says that he took Rouen in 877, but most historians are agreed thatRoll o probably did not appear in Francia until the early tenth century.  Thepossibility exists ho wever, that Dudo is preserving a belief that Vikings had been established in the Rouen area f rom about this time.  Rollo is thought to have been Norwegian rather than Danish, and later I celandicsources identify him with Hrolf the Ganger (walker), son of Ragnvald earl ofMoer, wh o had a career as a Viking before settling in Francia.  He married aChristian woman and his s on William, according to the Lament of WilliamLongsword, was born overseas.  (P) Nothing mor e in known about the 'Treatyof St Clair-sur-Epte' concluded in a personal interview between C harles theSimple and Rollo than Dudo tells us, and he has been accused of inventingthe meetin g.  That a cession of territory in the Seine, extending as farwest as the mouth of the Sein e on the coast and near the source of the Eureinland is affirmed by a charter of Charles th e Simple dated 14 March 918...... Flodoard adds the information that Rollo received baptism a nd theFrankish name Robert with the cession of this territory.
    (P) Rollo seems tohave been made a count in 911, with the traditional duties  assigned t o a Carolingian count, namely, protection and the administration of justice.  He was certainl y subordinate to the Frankish king.  With the proliferation of titles accorded the leader o f the Normandy Vikings in later sources, some historians hace suggested that Rollo was mad e a duke, but Werner has argued that there was no Norman *marchio* before 950-6, and no duk e before987-1006, that is, after Hugh Capet had gained the throne of France. .....(P) Rollo a ppears to have received his territory on similar terms as theBretons had received the Cotenti n, except that the bishoprics were alsoceded. ..... In exchange, Rollo was to defend the Sein e from other Vikings,accept baptism and become the *fidelis* of the Frankish king.  That ther ewere other groups of Vikings in the region, particularly in the western partof Normandy, i s clear.  The west stayed pagan longer; it was a centurybefore a bishop was appointed to th e Cotnetin.  .....  (P) The arrangementmade in 911 proved successful ..... The area of Norman dy by 933 correspondedto the area of the archdiocese of Rouen, with the seven *civitates* ofR ouen, Bayeux, Avranches, Evreux, See's, Lisieux and Coutances.  Thefortunes of the bishops o f Rouen and of the (principes* of Normandy were infact closely associated from the very begin ning."--- Rosamond McKitterick, *The Frankish Kingdom under the Carolingians,751-987*, Londo n & NY (Longman) 1983, p 237-238"A.D. 917. .....  Rollo, first duke of Normandy, died, and wa s succeeded byhis son William."--- Florence of Worcester (died c 1117), *A History of the Kin gs ofEngland* (OR: *The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester*), trans JosephStephenson, 1853 (r eprinted by Llanerch Enterprises, Felinfach, Lampeter,Dyfed, Wales SA48 8PJ, 1980s (?)), p 76

Details of Rollo's family with Gisela de Normandy

Details of Rollo's family with Poppa de Senlis