William Longsword

William Longsword was duke of Normandy, son of Rollo and of Papia, and succeeded his father in 931. He had been brought up by priests and leaned more to the monastic life than to the soldier's. The Normans, who prized courage above everything, despised him for his peaceable temper, and Rioulf, earl of the Cotentin, rose against him. The frightened duke was ready to yield, but the three barons faithful to his father rebuked him; with them and three hundred horsemen he rode out of Rouen and crushed the rebels. In 933 his son Richard, the future Duke Richard I, was born.

He supported King Louis IV of France, stood godfather to his son Lothair, and rebuilt the abbey of Jumièges, where he wished to become a monk; the abbot refused and the barons insisted that he remain at the head of the country. He helped Herloin of Montreuil against Arnulf, count of Flanders, who then plotted his death. Arnulf lured him to an island of the Somme at Picquigny, where he received the duke's oath of peace; as William was leaving he was called back alone and killed by Arnulf's men. The body was taken to Rouen and buried in the cathedral. The death took place in 943; the day of 17 December is the one kept at Rouen. He reigned twenty-⁠five years. He was sincerely pious, though not without faults.

The Gallican martyrologies call him a martyr. The source is Baring-⁠Gould, Lives of the Saints (1914 edition). He is honoured locally, as a saint of the undivided Church, with no synodal canonization shown in the source.