General Notes

[Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED]

[Etienne De Coligny.FTW]

ID: I17863
Name: Alberic De Montmorency 1
Sex: M
Birth: ABT 910 1
Death: Deceased 1
Reference Number: 5584

Note:
The name Burchard is of German origin and is associated with the traditions of the race commencing with the fall of the Roman Empire. The family is one of the oldest in Europe. In Latin it was Burchardus, in South Germany, Burckardt or Burckard, in France, Burchard or Bouchard. In its etymology the name Burk-hardt (castle hard) or strong castle. Hardcastle is another form in the English names.

The earliest mention of the name is probably in A. D. 496, that of Burchard, the first chieftain of the Franks, after Clovis, and was baptized into Christianity. He bore the proud title of "the First Christian Baron" and was the ancestor of the House of Montmorency, whose battle cry was, "God and the First Christian Baron." From the time of Burchard, 1st Sire de Montmorency in the tenth century, for 600 years this family held the highest rank and was declared by Henry IV of France to be, after that of Bourbon, the First House in Europe. Domesday Book, completed by William the Conqueror in 1086, shows the name of Burchard on several of its pages. The family held lands in England at the time of Edward the Confessor about 1050. Few traces of the family are found in England. It is worthy of pride that the name has come down to us through a period of 1,400 years without the change of a single letter, for the name written in Latin, Burchardus; Anglice-Burchard is the name today, and the true way to spell the name. There were Burchards holding lands from the lords of the Manor of Witham, in County Essex, in the middle of the 17th century, and that part being close to the port of departure of Thomas Burchard, it is to be recommended that any intending researcher direct his effort to that quarter.

The most ancient existing families of France, of Spain, of England, do not venture to pursue their line beyond the barbarian chiefs who conquered their countries,--the Franks, the Visigoths, and Normans,--from the sixth to the eleventh centuries. Of the English many, as shown in this and the other works of the author, can prove contemporaneous origin with the Conquest in 1066, or even an anterior Saxon descent, but the pretensions of other nations to more remote antiquity are wholly untenable, because entirely unsubstantiated. The Montmorencys, who by general consent are placed at the head of the French Haute Noblesse, and who arrogate the title of Premier Baron Chretien,?? rest this proud assumption upon no solid foundation. The first of the name distinguished in his tory, Bouchard, Le Barbu, or the Bearded, lived, according to Hainaut, about the year 1028, and from that period until the close of the eighteenth century, when the Duke de Luxembourg, the last male representative of the second branch died, no house in France was more illustrious in rank and achievement. The direct line failed in 1632, when Henrt (II.) Duc, Pair et Mar‚chal de Montmorency, was beheaded at Toulouse, and his immense inheritance passed to his sister, the Princesse de Cond‚, mother of the Grand Cond‚, of whose descendants it made, in the last century, next to the Orleans branch of the royal blood, (to whom it has lately devolved) the largest proprietors in France. The house of Cond‚ did not previously possess above one hundred thousand livres a year. "II n'y a plus de Montmorency" says Montgaillard, "que du chef des femmes," the Luxembourg branch, a collsteral one, which suceeded the main stock in 1632, having expired, as above, in or about 1790, but the present Montmorencys (Laval) do not admit this. In Ireland, the Lord Frankfort, and others of the name of Morres have lately resumed their original name, as they allege, of Montmorency. During nearly every reign from Philit ?? (1060) the Montmorencys were constables of France, until that dignity was suppressed under Louis XIII in 1627.



Marriage 1 Spouse Unknown
Children
Bouchard De Bray Sur Seine b: ABT 945

Marriage 2 Elgifu Of Wessex b: ABT 912
Children
Bouchard De Bray Sur Seine b: ABT 945

Sources:
Title: woodward.FTW
Repository:
Call Number:
Media: Other
Text: Date of Import: Nov 7, 2000