Burke's The Landed Gentry states the Gossetts were of "Norman extraction". It is quite certain that the Gossetts came from Norway in one of the minor, early invasions of France, much earlier than the eighth century and before the invasion under Rollo, the Viking chief, who took possession of the region of the lower Seine River about 911.
Deriving its name from the Normans, the region was called "Normandy". These invaders from Norway promptly turned Christian and mingled with the former inhabitants, the Romanized Gauls. They assimilated knowledge and refinement, adopted French customs, but retained their own fine qualities of chivalry and honour. They were tall and strongly built with fair hair and complexion and blue eyes -- whose characteristics are even nowadays to be found in individuals living in Normandy, particularly in the area near the sea. "They became wise administrators and guardians of law and order. . . They improved modes and principles of fighting. . . They developed an impressive style of architecture, and built churches and monasteries.'"1 The Norman race does not exist today.
In The History of England, Lord Macaulay portrays the Normans, "then the foremost race of Christendom . . . they abandoned their native speech and adopted the French tongue, in which the Latin was the predominant element. They speedily raised their new language to a dignity and importance which it had never possessed. . . That chivalrous spirit, which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, the morals, and manners of the European nations was found in the highest exaltation amongst the Norman nobles. These nobles were distinguished by their graceful bearing . . . by their skill in negotiation and by a natural eloquence, which they assiduously cultivated. . . But their chief fame was derived from their military exploits".2
The Normans played an important part during the Middle Ages in the development of French civilization. Their courage, their intellect, and their extraordinary energy have left a permanent and profound influence on the world. The achievements and the wealth of the Normans in Normandy were amazing.
Their increased population demanded new territory and, in 1066, Normans from Normandy under William the Conqueror invaded and conquered England. "Everyone habitually regards the Normans of England as an aristocracy. To say that a family is Norman is nearly equivalent to saying it is amongst the oldest of the old and the noblest of the noble".3
A passage of Henry Adams about the Normans is interesting:
A great age it was, and a great people our Norman ancestors. Rather hard and grasping, and with no outward show of grace; little love for the exterior magnificence of Amiens, Chartres and Rouen; given to use of the sword and plough rather than the chisel, and apparently little or none of the brush, and with no sense of color comparable to that of other races; still our Norman grandpapas did great things in art, or at least in the narrow art that reflected their lives. I have rarely felt New England at its highest ideal power as it appeared to me, beautified, and glorified, in the Cathedral of Coutances. (Letter to Brooks Adams, September 8, 1895, in Letters, II, p. 80.)
The Nobility Of France.
Nobility was a distinction based on ancient heritage, having been acquired through virtues and merit. A most noteworthy article on nobility appears in the Spanish Encyclopaedia. It shows the degree of valor required of the nobility. The article affirms that it was by glorious victories and brilliant deeds of arms and heroic sacrifices and virtues and merits by which individuals became noble. As the personal glory of an illustrious warrior was transmitted to his descendants, noble families were born. Therefore, wealth does not produce nobility; however, except in union with wealth, nobility can not last. The article refers to Aristotle's definition of nobility as "the antiquity of wealth and merit".
The nobles of France formed the upper class of society. The clergy and the peasants formed the second and third classes. Occupying the coveted, highest rank in society, the nobles had a multitude of exclusive privileges. The nobles owned all the land, which was the basis of wealth, and they controlled their great estates or manors and the laboring peasants from fortified castles, which were built on high, formidable locations. Their castles were scattered several miles apart, rising above forests from the top of a steep hill or a precipitous rock.
The feudal castle was surrounded by walls eight feet thick and was separated from the surrounding country by a wide moat, which could be crossed only by a drawbridge. The entrance gate was safeguarded by turrets overlooking the entire area. The keep was the tallest part of the castle, where the lord and his family lived. The walls of the large entrance hall were decorated with armour and with portraits and other treasures, including tapestries. Feudalism had its form of culture. The chateaux became palaces stored with rare, precious works of art.
Within the fortified walls of the castle there were living quarters for the attendants and vast storehouses for supplies. There were annexes and enclosures in which the peasants gathered with their belongings, when the frequent wars occurred.
To confirm the assertion that the Gossetts were nobles of France, it is necessary only to remember that the Gossett arms vividly describe the Gossetts as powerful feudal barons and knights in the crusades. Subsequently, they were nobles of France. Burke elucidates in volume IV, etc., stating: "As early as 1463 the Gossets were included among the nobles of Normandy."
The meaning of that statement is, the Gossets were feudal barons who were admitted to an order, called "The Nobility of France", which was formed in 1463 by King Louis XI (King of France 1461-1483). The order was composed only of feudal barons whose ancestors were the knights in the crusades. In other words, the nobles of France were possessors of feudal estates and they were the descendants of feudal lords who were the knights of the crusades. "The Nobility of France"had ancient heritage and was referred to as the nobility of the ancient regime.
King Louis XI, endeavoring to increase his power and to destroy the political independence of the feudal barons, made his court brilliant, attractive, entertaining. The social life centered in the royal palace. The king tried to allure the barons from their castles and to induce them to devote themselves to court life. The barons paid no taxes and the best places in the government were reserved for them. The barons, or nobles, lost some of their power but kept their wealth and privileges.
The nobles continued to supersede the royal ruler in power in France until the end of the fifteenth century. The nobles were exempt from taxation and they minted their own money as late as the French Revolution (1789). These gentlemen conformed to- the style of existence required of their rank. They had high moral standards. They were too proud to violate their code of ethics. The French nobility was distinguished by its privileges, power, leisure, and wealth. Supported by peasantry, it was a closed privileged class and represented a mark of high birth. (Reference: The Growth of the French Nation (1926) by George Burton Adams, professor of history at Yale University.)
Like their ancestors (the feudal lords and the knights) the nobles were careful, devoted parents. They arranged the marriages of their children, who were permitted to marry only in their own class. Their children were taught politeness, grace, good morals, and religion. They took no important step without paternal counsel and consent. The daughters married young or entered a convent. The eldest son inherited the estate. Equally noble, the younger sons were given professional training for commissioned officers in the army and navy. With an application for a commission in the army and navy of France, a candidate was obliged to file his papers with the royal herald, to give definite proofs of generations of nobility on his father's side. He was required to prove that his ancestors were feudal barons, the landowners for generations, and were warriors of the crusades. Nobility was of the sword and dated back to the knights of the crusades.
In France, every man who achieved eminence through education or acquired great wealth through trade strove to enter the ranks of nobility, which could be purchased to an extent under the reign of Louis XII, King of France 1498-1515. The resources of the treasury were depleted and the government accepted sums of money in exchange for titles and offices. At that time, Louis XII formed another class called the nobles of the gown or robe. This class was between the bourgeois and the nobles. Its members were never regarded equal in position and dignity to the nobles of the ancient regime.
The newly created nobles tried to mingle with the families of the old nobility. They assumed coats-of-arms and bought estates which had belonged to ancient nobles. They were very rich and prosperous and reared their sons like gentlemen, but they had never thought of shedding their blood for a noble cause. They attained through their wealth their titles. The nobles of the gown or robe were called "robins" and were despised by the nobles of ancient lineage. (Ref. - Edward J. Lowell, The Eve of the French Revolution, 1892.)
During the revolution that began in France in 1789, the populace destroyed the records of the nobles. Records of the Gossett family, therefore, have been preserved only through English records. The Gossetts were Norman nobles. They were nobles of the ancient regime. The volumes of Burke, The Landed Gentry, reiterate:
"For centuries the family of Gosset lived in Normandy, France, and was included in the ranks of the nobility."
"Before 1555 the Gossets were included among the nobles."
This Gossett history gives data on descendants of Jean Gosset, who was of a Norman noble family and who lived on his estates in the neighborhood of St. Sauveur, a town in department Manche on the Douve River, about 18 miles south of Cherbourg, France. St. Sauveur is surrounded by pleasant, hilly scenery. Its description for the tourist, found in Muirhead's The Blue Guides (1940), is, "St. Sauveur is another small town with a castle (now a hospital), given by Edward III to Sir John Chandos who built one of the gateways. The keep is of earlier date. Of the old abbey, founded in 1080, nothing remains but a 17th century abbot's lodge. The Norman church has been very largely rebuilt. . .. A little farther south there are two old castles on the Taute River".
When the Allies of World War II landed on the Normandy coast in June 1944 and pushed up the Cherbourg peninsula, the little town of St. Sauveur was suddenly torn from its obscurity to become for time the most important military position in western Europe.
There has always been a John Gossett, it has been said, and many a John Gossett engaged in great events of history with a memorable record. A John Gosset lived in Normandy in the early part of the 14th century, during the Hundred Years War. (Under "Gossets" in Norman People, pub. by Hugh S. King and Co., 1874, p. 264, in London.) Apparently he spelled the family name as it is spelled today. It was a John Gosset who was the original emigrant to America. In America in every succeeding generation to the present day there have been men by the name of John Gossett.
The activities of Jean (John) Gosset of Normandy during the Huguenot period of history left a permanent influence upon the lives of his descendants. The following chapter discusses the Huguenot Movement and the cause of the expulsion from France of Jean Gosset and many other citizens.
- Sisley Huddleston, Normandy (1929), p. 4. RETURN TO TEXT
- Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England, I, 21f. RETURN TO TEXT
- The Norman People, op. cit., p. 33. RETURN TO TEXT
