Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
I should add something here about the times and the this mans purchase of a mill from the Abbey of Criel........
The purchase of a mill was a very big deal in France.....In Normandy such transactions were subject to the approval of the Archbishop of Roeun (who himself was originally part of the family of William the Conqueror and the Rollo clan)
Mills=control of grain=control of food.......not a light matter back then.
Thus the churches controlled mills........and who ran them...so to purchase one........required their approval that the purchaser was a man of great character and standing.......
.........and it hints he was Catholic: at least when Jean Lesire bought it........remember: being Protestant or Catholic was kind of fluid.......one's life depended upon being on the right side of those wars...........
so it was not uncommon to switch sides as required........
Although in general: Dieppe and Rouen were hotbeds of bourgeois Protestantism........
these guys were making a lot of money: both in the cloth business, slave trade and fish/fur business with Canada.....
and they were fed up with what they considered corrupt clergy either taxing them to ridiculous levels:......and their general conduct.......
One finds historical reports at the time of the regional Archbishop finding the clergy of Criel engaging in the buying and selling of lambs,,,,,,,,,,instead of prayer.......and other nearby abbeys selling booze, being drunk on the job, getting parishioners drunk, taxing prostitutes, wearing "street clothes".........having children....
The middle classes of Normandy were completely fed up with the Catholic church of the day...........and it was only the sponsorship of the King of France that kept it from being totally trounced out of existence in Normandy.......on penalty of death........
And there sure were reports of people being hacked to pieces in the region.
In fact: there are 14 Lesire men listed in Rouen records around 1594?? (have to recheck that date) as "heroes of the Protestant" religion for fighting on it's behalf...........everyone else had taken off: and it was left to the merchants of Rouen to fight and man the cannons so to speak......
Presumably some got out of town.......we sure do find a ton of Sire people showing up in Amiens: just south of Rouen in the cloth business during not much later.
And Jean Lesire in 1609 in Rouen..........what business? I am sure we will find out one day........
there were only a handful of real trades going on there at the time:
-lace
-ivory
-Canadian fish
-British smelting
-pirating......lol
-smuggling
and Canada: which was considered a business all in itself...
It serves to remember that even in these old times: Dieppe was only an overnight sail from Brighton England. These guys ran back and forth on a near regular schedule.
So in summary: you had to be a big deal to purchase a mill.
Thus there must be more to learn about this Lesire family: they were of some import in the local scene
and it could be our Sires.
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:
|
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/cyr/messages/1769.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|