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Friday, February 3, 2017

Mr. Daniel Inwood - Pilgrim to New Zealand

The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District]


A Crowd Outside the Inwood Cottage Hospital in Crown Close, Alton, Hampshire, 1897. (Photo by Past Pix/SSPL/Getty Images)
Mr. Daniel Inwood who was well known in the early days of Christchurch, was born at Alton, Hampshire, England, in 1803, and came to Canterbury, in 1850, by the historic ship “Sir George Seymour.” Mr. Inwood, who had been engaged in milling and farming in England, was advised by Mr. Felix Wakefield, who was known to him in the Old Country, to try New Zealand, where Mr Wakefield considered there was a brighter and better prospect for Mr. Inwood and his young family than in England. Mr. Inwood accordingly left with his family in the “Sir George Seymour,” by which he also brought out machinery for a flour mill. It was Mr. Inwood who erected at Fendalton the first flour mill on the Plains. After working it for seven years, he built, on the Avon, at Christchurch, the flour mill which was so long known as the “City Hill”; and which was afterwards purchased by Mr. Lane: the building was long one of the landmarks of Christchurch, and was demolished only a few years ago. On disposing of the City Mill, Mr. Inwood purchased page 366 the large property at Southbridge, on which his sons have since resided, and also erected at the picturesque village of Winchester, another flour mill which was long worked by one of his sons. In the latter years of his life Mr. Inwood lived in retirement at Fendalton until his death in 1878, when he left a widow, five sons and one daughter. Mr. Inwood was of a retiring disposition, and except that he had a seat on the Riccarton Road Board, he took no part in the politics of the day.
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Queen Snaefrid (Snowfair) Swasisdottir

BIRTH 862 • Trondheim, Sor-Trondelag, Norway
DEATH 919 • Rogaland, Norway
32nd great-grandmother

What is this story based on?  How was King Harald bewitched by this woman?  And what kept her body in-corrupt until it was moved?  I am fascinated by this whole thing because legends are based on truth.  Where did she come from?

Here is an excerpt from from "The Saga of King Harald Fair-Hair" in Heimskringla which tells about Snaefrid.  This 1932 translation is by Erling Monsen:

King Harald went one winter a-feasting in the Uplands and had a Yule feast made ready for himself in Toftar. On the eve of Yule, Svasi came without the door whilst the king was at the table and he sent a messenger to the king to go out to him. But the king was wroth at that behest and the same man who brought in the behest bore out the king’s anger, but notwithstanding, Svasi bade him carry the same message a second time; he said he was the Finn whom the king had allowed to set his hut on the other side of the stream there. 
The king then went out and agreed to go home with him and crossed the stream, egged on my some of his men but discouraged by others. There Snaefrid, Svasi’s daughter, stood up, the most beautiful of women, and she offered the king a cup full of mead; he drank it all and also took her hand, and straightway it was as though fire passed through his body, and at once he would lie with her that same night. 
But Svasi said that it should not be so except by force, unless the king betrothed Snaefrid and wed her according to the law. The king took Snaefrid and wed her, and he loved her so witlessly that he neglected his kingdom and all that was seemly for his kingly honour. They got four sons, Sigurd the Giant, Halvdan Highleg, Gudrod Gleam, and Ragnvald Rettlebone. 
Afterwards Snaefrid died, but the colour of her skin never faded and she was as rosy as before when she lived. The king always sat over her and thought that she would come to life again, and thus it went on for three winters that he sorrowed over her death and all the people of his land sorrowed over his delusion. 
And to stop this delusion, Torleiv the Wise came to his help; he did it with prudence, in that he spoke to him first with soft words, saying, “Is it not strange, O king, that thou shouldst remember so bright and noble a woman and honour her with down and goodly web [cloth] as she bade thee. But thy honour and hers is still less than it seems, in that she has lain for a long while in the same clothes, and it is fitter that she should be raised and the clothes changed under her.” 
But as soon as she was raised from the bed, so there rose from the body a rotten and loathesome smell and all kinds of evil stink; speedily a funeral bale was then made and she was burned. But before that all the body waxed blue and out crawled worms and adders, frogs ,and paddocks and all manner of foul reptiles. So she sank into ashes, and the king came to his wits and cast his folly from his heart and afterwards ruled the kingdom and was strengthened and gladdened by his men, and they by him, and the kingdom by both.


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Thursday, February 2, 2017

King Dagobert I

    Ancestry.comAncestry.com
    King Dagobert I of Franks Merovingian (603 - 639)
    40th great-grandfather


Rule in Austrasia


Dagobert was the eldest son of Chlothar II and Haldetrude (575–604). Chlothar had reigned alone over all the Franks since 613. In 623, Chlothar was forced to make Dagobert king of Austrasia by the nobility of that region, who wanted a king of their own.
When Chlothar granted Austrasia to Dagobert, he initially excluded Alsace, the Vosges, and the Ardennes, but shortly thereafter the Austrasian nobility forced him to concede these regions to Dagobert. The rule of a Frank from the Austrasian heartland tied Alsace more closely to the Austrasian court. Dagobert created a new duchy (the later Duchy of Alsace) in southwest Austrasia to guard the region from Burgundian or Alemannic encroachments and ambitions. The duchy comprised the Vosges, the Burgundian Gate, and the Transjura. Dagobert made his courtier Gundoin the first duke of this new polity that was to last until the end of the Merovingian dynasty.

United Rule

Upon the death of his father in 629, Dagobert inherited the Neustrian and Burgundian kingdoms. His half-brother Charibert, son of Sichilde, claimed Neustria but Dagobert opposed him. Brodulf, brother of Sichilde, petitioned Dagobert on behalf of his young nephew, but Dagobert assassinated him and gave the Aquitaine to his own younger sibling.[who?][citation needed]
Charibert and his son Chilperic were assassinated in 632. Dagobert had Burgundy and Aquitaine firmly under his rule, becoming the most powerful Merovingian king in many years and the most respected ruler in the West. In 631, Dagobert led three armies against Samo, the rulers of the Slavs, but his Austrasian forces were defeated at Wogastisburg

Marriage and children

The author of the Chronicle of Fredegar criticises the king for his loose morals in having "three queens almost simultaneously, as well as several concubines".[4] The chronicle names the queens, Nanthild and the otherwise obscure Wulfegundis and Berchildis, but none of the concubines, stating that a full list of concubines would be too long.
In 625/6 Dagobert married Gormatrude, a sister of his father's wife Sichilde; but the marriage was childless. After divorcing Gormatrude in 629/30 he made Nanthild, a Saxon servant (puella) from his personal entourage, his new queen.[5] She gave birth to:
  • Clovis II (b. 634/5) later king of Neustria and Burgundy.
Shortly after his marriage to Nanthild, he took a girl called Ragnetrude to his bed, who gave birth to his youngest son:
It has been speculated that Regintrud, abbess of Nonnberg Abbey, was also a child of Dagobert, although this theory does not fit Regintrud's supposed date of birth between 660 and 665. She married into the Bavarian Agilolfing family (either Theodo, Duke of Bavaria or his son Duke in Salzburg
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Robert the Strong

Ancestry.com

Robert IV or Rutpert IV "the Strong" Margrave in Neustria (830 - 866)
32nd great-grandfather
File:The outline of history - being a plain history of life and mankind (1920) (14580277120).jpg
Map of early Frankland, showing Austrasia, where Robert the Strong originated, 
Robert the Strong (c. 830-2 July 866), also known as Rutpert, also known as Robert IV of Worms, was Margrave in Neustria. His family is named after him and called the Robertians. In 853 he was named missus dominicus by Charles the Bald, King of West Francia. He was the father of two kings of West Francia Odo (or Eudes) and Robert I of France. Robert the Strong was the great-grandfather of Hugh Capet and thus the ancestor of all the Capetians.

Origins and rise to power

Robert was a son of Robert III of Worms. While very little is known about the beginnings of the Robertian family, historians have been able to adduce evidence that the family of nobles had its origins in Hesbaye (approximately present-day Belgium), or perhaps had descended from the family of Chrodegang of Metz—and that Robert was the son of Robert III of Worms.
During the reign of Louis the German in East Francia, the Robertian family emigrated from East Francia to West Francia. After their arrival in his realm Charles the Bald rewarded the family defecting from his enemy by assigning to Robert the lay abbacy of Marmoutier in 852. And in 853 he granted the position of missus dominicus in the provinces of Maine, Anjou, and Touraine to Robert, giving him de facto control of the ancient ducatus Cenomannicus, a large duchy centred on Le Mans and corresponding to the ancient realm of regnum Neustriae. Robert's rise came at the expense of the established family of the Rorigonids and was designed to curb their regional power and to defend Neustria from Viking and Breton raids.

Revolt

In 858 Robert joined a rebellion against Charles the Bald. With the Bretons under Salomon he led the Frankish nobles of Neustria and invited Louis the German to invade West Francia and receive their homage. The revolt had been sparked by a marriage alliance between Charles and Erispoe, Duke of Brittany, and by the investment of Charles’ son, Louis the Stammerer, with the regnum Neustriae, all which significantly curtailed the powers of both Salomon and Robert. Charles had given Robert the counties of Autun and Nevers in Burgundy; and in 856 Robert had defended Autun from Louis the German. But following Erispoe's assassination in November 857, he and Salomon rebelled against Charles.
Robert’s Neustrians chased Louis the Stammerer from Le Mans in 858. Later that year, Louis the German reached Orléans and received delegations from the Breton and Neustrian leaders, as well as from Pepin II. In 861, Charles made peace with Robert and appointed him Count of Anjou. Thereafter Robert successfully defended the northern coast against a Viking invasion.
In 862 Charles granted Louis the Stammerer, his son, the lay abbacy of Saint Martin of Tours—a worthy benefice but small in comparison with the kingdom he had received in 856, and lost in 858. The young Louis rebelled and, befriended by Salomon who supplied him with troops, mounted war against Robert.
In 862 two Viking fleets converged on Brittany; one had recently been forced out of the Seine by Charles the Bald, the other was returning from a Mediterranean expedition. Salomon hired the Mediterranean fleet to ravage the Loire valley in Nuestria.[2] Robert captured twelve of their ships, killing all on board save a few who fled. He then hired the former Seine Vikings to attack Salomon’s realm for 6,000 pounds silver.
Robert’s apparent purpose was to prevent the Vikings from serving Salomon. [a] He presumably collected a large amount in taxes for a (non-tributary) Danegeld to pay for keeping the Vikings out of Neustria.[b] But peace between the Franks and the Vikings did not last long: in 863 Salomon made his peace, but the Vikings, now deprived of enemy lands to loot, proceeded to ravage Neustria. Charles now made Robert Lay abbot of the influential abbey St. Martin at Tours.[3]
Robert warred with Pepin II in his later years. In 863 he again defended Autun from Louis the German; he campaigned in Neustria in 865 and again in 866, shortly before his death, dealing with Bretons and Vikings ravaging the environs of Le Mans.

Family

While there is much conjecture about Robert's wife, her identity is unknown. Robert had two sons, in addition to several speculated daughters whose existence or identity as Robert's daughters cannot be definitively shown:[4]
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