On Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 8:31:30 AM UTC-7, Stewart Baldwin via wrote: > On 7/7/2016 10:12 AM, taf via wrote: > > > On Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 6:36:56 AM UTC-7, Paulo Canedo wrote: > > > >> Well Rollo´s son contemporany Planctus states (without naming her) that > >> she was a Christian, and that her son William was born overseas. > > This was said about William's (generic) mother, not about Dudo's Poppa > > in particular. It is probably a mistake to assume that they refer to > > the same person. > > For what it is worth, Dudo does state that Poppa was William's mother. > This is not necessarily inconsistent with the statement of the Planctus, > but it would also be wrong to say that the Planctus supports Dudo's > statements about William's mother. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. We have Dudo saying that William's mother was Poppa, daughter of Berenger, captured during a raid on Bayeux. Separately we have Planctus claiming that William's mother was a Christian born overseas. While there is nothing about these statements that makes them mutually exclusive, given the scant nature of the historical record and Dudo's inaccuracies on other points, it can't be taken for granted that Planctus was referring to the Poppa of Bayeux described by Dudo as being William's mother. taf

On 8/07/2016 2:47 AM, taf via wrote: > On Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 8:31:30 AM UTC-7, Stewart Baldwin via wrote: >> On 7/7/2016 10:12 AM, taf via wrote: >> >>> On Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 6:36:56 AM UTC-7, Paulo Canedo wrote: >>> >>>> Well Rollo´s son contemporany Planctus states (without naming her) that >>>> she was a Christian, and that her son William was born overseas. >>> This was said about William's (generic) mother, not about Dudo's Poppa >>> in particular. It is probably a mistake to assume that they refer to >>> the same person. >> For what it is worth, Dudo does state that Poppa was William's mother. >> This is not necessarily inconsistent with the statement of the Planctus, >> but it would also be wrong to say that the Planctus supports Dudo's >> statements about William's mother. > I didn't mean to imply otherwise. We have Dudo saying that William's mother was Poppa, daughter of Berenger, captured during a raid on Bayeux. Separately we have Planctus claiming that William's mother was a Christian born overseas. While there is nothing about these statements that makes them mutually exclusive, given the scant nature of the historical record and Dudo's inaccuracies on other points, it can't be taken for granted that Planctus was referring to the Poppa of Bayeux described by Dudo as being William's mother. > > The unwarranted credit given to Dudo on this has eclipsed an alternative version from the lost annals of Rouen, as redacted ca 1220 at Saint-Wandrille, according to which Popa was a daughter of Wido, count of Senlis, and sister of Bernard whom William called his 'avunculus' in a speech reported by Dudo ("Ibo ad Bernardum Silvanectensem, meum avunculum". However, Dudo later switched in third-person narrative to calling Bernard the uncle of William's son Richard. Whoever was her father, it is scarcely credible that Rollo would have kidnapped Popa on a raid at Bayeux before the Normans settled at Rouen, taken her overseas and then allowed her to baptise their son with a Frankish name and raise the boy as a Christian. But Dudo lacked either the nous or the self-discipline (or both) to confine himself to plausibilities. Peter Stewart