• General Notes

  Knight in the Norman village of             de Perci  (Normandy, France).
  
  THE HOUSE OF PERCY
  The House of Percy has a special place in English history and from here you will be able to find descriptions and explanations of the events and influences surrounding this most Noble family and some of its more interesting and sometimes infamous characters.
  The Percies settled permanently in England from Normandy in the 11th century. Since then their charm, battle prowess and presumed notoriety has indelably marked and coloured the fabric of English history, a history that today a thousand years later is still so very much alive.
  These Percy chapters reveal scenes of valour, conflict, love and religious fervour which have all auguably made a lasting impression. Whether on the landscape of Northumberland or from within the corridors of power at Court, the blood and glory of their conflicts is remembered by some of the fiercest battles ever to be fought on English soil. The Percies keeness to fight and their skill in battle was permanently etched into their makeup, it was almost as though the neccessity to protect their hard won lands, honour and power had embedded itself in their blood and it was their fierce protection and control of the Northern border with Scotland that brought them such a an envious reputation.
  But their winning mood was soon to change and focus on the avaricious and jealously motivated desires of the Crown whose courtly machinations were to eventually claim its victim. The Percies were by now one of the most powerful families in England and virtually ruled the North as their own principality. They were forced though to react to these threats in a manner that was foreign to every ounce of their character. For to fight with politics and words was not a Percy way and their attempts at matching the cunning methods of their witful protaganists became their bette noir, from which they eventually paid so dearly by attainder, confisaction, imprisonment and the executioners axe.
  The irony in all of this too was that the Percies were as Royal and Noble as the rulers who manifested themselves so cleverly over them, those who were directly responsible for their cousins fate. For through the Percies veins ran the very same Royal blood which gave them their inimitable right to the Crown of England, the Crown they so very nearly won.
  So all this too, might tell you how they tenaciously held onto it all against the most extreme and tremendous odds, as this proud family undaunted by the fiercest of odds clawed back, maintained, sustained to grow back their power until today when the ancient banner of their most fascinating heritage can still be seen flying proudly from their magnificent castle at Alnwick in Northumberland.
  
  "Esperance en Dieu "
  The Percy family motto 'Hope in God'
  
  THE PERCIES FROM NORMANDY
  From about the 17th century it was thought (and recorded by scholars at that time) that in about the mid 800's AD the Percy family came to North Western France, as invading Viking pirates when accompanying their cheiftain and leader Rollo. It has been written that one of Rollo's captains, a grand man named Mainfred was given land and titles as a part of that granted to Rollo by the French Crown in an area called Auge around the village of Perci in what is now known as Normandy, and made it his home. Mainfred was consequently named as the originator of the Percy family.
  The native French called these invaders Normans, or men from the North. The village of Perci had already been named by Roman conquerers some centuries earlier, whose legion had settled here after their recently completed campaign in Persia. Hence the colonists derived the name Perci from the word Persia-cum (from Persia). At the time of the Norman invasion the custom of surnames was almost unknown. It was only when the Viking victors hired the expert agricultuists from Flanders to make the barren land of Normandy good did they learn of the noble art of the surname. The Noble Flemish family's who were given land in exchange for expertise brought their heritage with them and so the title holder who gained the lands around the village of Perci was to be known from whence he lived - de Perci.
  The acknowledged and recognised link to the Percy family's history before their arrival in Normandy is all to do with the bearing of their arms. This is reflected in the actual coat that was used by the family as can be seen from the Norman charters of the time which are still in existence today.
  The Normans did not use heraldy at this time but the Percy family certainly did. They bore a coat then (as shown above), which can be traced to those previously used by the Aristocratic families who inhabited the region to the North of France known as Flanders.
  That the Baronial family of Percy took their name from their fiefdom in Normandy is also true but the notion of their Viking ancestry and that of being of Norman heritage has at best been displayed as a fashionably romantic idea.
  What follows here is a description kindly offered by Baronage Press Magazine, an online authority on such matters who have spent much time and effort researching this very same subject in some detail.
  "The known marital alliances of the Percies during the centuries succeeding, shouts aloud their Flemish origin. The arms used by the Percies in the late 11th century are not Norman (for the Normans, unlike the Flemings, then had no heraldry), and in accordance with the manner in which early heraldic symbolism operated strongly suggest a connection with Bethune (a few miles west of Lille in what was then the county of Flanders).
  That the western part of Normandy had in the middle of the 11th century a strong representation of the Flemish aristocracy tends to be overlooked by those English writers who have not examined the "Norman" charters of the period. This is especially true of the Cotentin peninsular, a desolate area of infertile ground that had been a French princess's dowry when she married Baldwin of Flanders. (It had previously appeared to be Norman, because Duke Richard III had received it as that same princess's dowry when he was supposed to marry her, and had returned it to her when the marriage failed to proceed.) Baldwin populated the area with Flemings who knew from their own experience in northern Flanders just how such a bleak coastal area could be defended militarily and exploited agriculturally, and it is from this heritage that such great families as Bruce, Ferrers, Haig, Hay, Mandeville, Morville, Percy and Vere emerged, most taking their names from their Norman fiefs (and their arms from their origins in Greater Flanders)".
  The village of Percy en Auge is still in existence, as is another village of the same name in the Department of Calvados nearby. French relatives of the English Percies are also still to be found in this region today.
  
  PERCY ANCESTORS
  
  Galfred de Perci.
  
  Geoffrey de Perci.
  
  William de Perci.
  
  Geoffrey de Perci.
  
  Alan de Percy.
  
  Baron William de Perci ( Algersnons), had brothers Serlo and Picot de Percy
  
  The next we know is that Edward the confessor, King of England (circa 1040) hired Alan de Percy of Normandy to assist him in defending England, North of the Humber against the invading Vikings. But when Harold became King he was suspicious of the connection between Alan de Percy and Duke William of Normandy and expelled Alan from England. A son was born to Alan de Perci near Alnwick before 1066.
  
  William de Perci was wild and adventurous and wore a beard(which was apparently unusual at this time). For this he was known as Al-gers-nons (meaning with whiskers) and the name of Algernon has followed the Percy race to this very day.
  There does not seem to be any proof that William de Percy was with William the Conquerer at the battle of Hastings in 1066. In fact it seems that William (Algernon) de Percy arrived in England in 1067 to assist the Conquerer mop up remaining resistance in Yorkshire and shore up the defences against the threat from Scotland and from the possibility of Viking invasion. For his trouble William de Percy was given knights fees and land, initially under Earl Hugh of Chester. By 1086 William's family including brothers Serlo and Picot is charted as owning various estates in Yorkshire and the surrounding counties.
  
  
  
  

Details of Geffrey's family with <Unknown>