Romanov Byzantine Ancestry

[Valmont]

Mea Culpa.. . . .

[Ex-Princess Lisa]

Any Merovignians about?

No, There are no Merovignians about, I was not talking about Merovingnians. Generally I'm not very polite about them.

[Valmont]

Ra doesn't like them very much either...

[Ilias_of_John]

I'll ring Googoo, see what he has to say!

[Ex-Princess Lisa]

The Purcells landed in England in 1066. 2 Generations later Strongbow invited Sir Hugh Purcell to join him fighting for the King of Leinster against the other kings of Ireland. Sir Hugh Purcell was the father of all the Purcells in Ireland.
He was buried in French Church, Waterford.
The Purcells shield crest was the 3 lions. Unfortunately for the Purcells nobody in Ireland knew what a lion looked like 800 years ago, so the engravings of their crest looked more like 3 pigs.
After Cromwells armies had killed most of them and the rest were proverty stricken, the Purcells were erased from nobility. A reverand even went so far as to write a book about how the Purcells got their name and crest, (that a man had to catch a pig in order to marry a rich mans daughter and so was named little pig afterwards) Unfortunately this misinformation stuck and even today if you look up the shield crest for Purcell, it is either 3 or 4 pigs or 3 or 4 pigs heads.

[Ilias_of_John]

Terrific, now we have 3 flying little pigs.
I just did a wikipedia on the Purcells,and they are of French ancestry no doubt,however, no obvious link exists with Charlemagne and oe with the Romanovs.
and besides, who cares?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barons_of_Loughmoe

[Ex-Princess Lisa]

Terrific, now we have 3 flying little pigs.
I just did a wikipedia on the Purcells,and they are of French ancestry no doubt,however, no obvious link exists with Charlemagne and oe with the Romanovs.
and besides, who cares?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barons_of_Loughmoe

That is a very interesting article on wikipedia, but I would disagree with it on at least one point. I do not believe Hugh Purcell was called Hugh Porcel at any point. I would like to see the original evidence for this.
The reverend who wrote the story about the Purcells being descended from a pig farmer states that the name Purcell comes from the French word Porcel, meaning little pig.
In reality Purcell is a derivative of the name Percival (as in Sir Percival)
The pig story is intended as an insult to the Purcells, because they were supposed to be descended from Jewish blood, the reverend must have known this and saying that a jewish person is descended from a pig farmer is a greater insult than saying non-jewish person is descended from a pig farmer.

[Ilias_of_John]

Of course,
pigs and jews, how remiss of us not to notice it!
Now if you are going to start to involve Percival, Gallahad, Arthur, grails Merovignians,,,,,and RA I am taking my bat, and my ball and going home.

[Norbert]

sadly the Byzantine throne was usually the prize of many usurping Emperors many of whom were from quite base lineage. The Paleologolos dynasty inherited a principality in italy and their descendants married into the royal houses of Europe.

[Norbert]

Byzantine marriages were with the House of Rurik...the Romanovs were elected on the extinction of the main line of that family in 1613 and were very remotely connected. However Catherine II and the Holsteins had Byzntine descent

[MacL]

This was an interesting topic. It did not deserve such snide replies.
Unless an in-group posted it all as a farce; then I am being a fool. Otherwise, Ilias and Valmont  are lacking in common courtesy.
Bloodlines and genetic links are an interesting concept. Can't someone develop this further, without the sarcasm.

[JonC]

Believe me, that would be tough, unfortunately!

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

The Purcells shield crest was the 3 lions. Unfortunately for the Purcells nobody in Ireland knew what a lion looked like 800 years ago, so the engravings of their crest looked more like 3 pigs.
After Cromwells armies had killed most of them and the rest were proverty stricken, the Purcells were erased from nobility. A reverand even went so far as to write a book about how the Purcells got their name and crest, (that a man had to catch a pig in order to marry a rich mans daughter and so was named little pig afterwards) Unfortunately this misinformation stuck and even today if you look up the shield crest for Purcell, it is either 3 or 4 pigs or 3 or 4 pigs heads.

That's not pigs' heads, but boars' heads. I've never seen any heraldic pigs, but plenty of boars, for all the Von Ebersteins etc. And BTW the Shand arms in the arms of HRH the Duchess of Cornwall also features a boar's head. (Admittedly the lean, hairy medieval pigs which were taken to graze on acorns in the woods and there probably mated with boars looked a lot like boars, but still people differentiated between wild boars and domestic pigs.) The ferocious boar was treasured game for noble hunters and especially among the Celts it had mythological status and features in many legends, despite being extinct in Ireland today.

Ex-Princess Lisa, you'd better focus your energy on Finland: Nicholas II, "the heir of the Orthodox Byzantine Emperors, Tsar of the Third Rome" deported a certain Finnish politician and nobleman called Pehr Evind Svinhufvud (= Swine Head) to Siberia. Svinhufvud came back and led the Finnish fight for independence against God's Anointed Autocrat and Grand Duke of Finland and "usurped" his position, as Regent and later President of Finland! That should surely hold enormous significance for you! :-)

[Kalafrana]

The Byzantine throne was hotly contested and there were numerous dynasties, most of them relatively short-lived by Western European Standards. Following his conversion, St Vladimir married the sister of the Emperors Basil II (the Bulgar Slayer) and Constantine (?VII). They belonged to the Macedonian dynasty, which was one of the longer-lasting. Vladimir Monomakh's mother was a daughter of the Emperor Constantine Monomachus.

Ann

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

St Vladimir married the sister of the Emperors Basil II (the Bulgar Slayer) and Constantine (?VII). They belonged to the Macedonian dynasty, which was one of the longer-lasting. Vladimir Monomakh's mother was a daughter of the Emperor Constantine Monomachus.

But they were not necessarily ancestors of the Romanovs.