In glancing through Cole's MSS. in the British Museum, my eye rested on two
paragraphs, which perhaps may be unknown to MR. LOWER. In Additional MSS.
No. 5805. p. iv., Cole says:
"Before surnames were in use they were forced to distinguish one
another by the addition of _Fitz_ or _Son_, as John Fitz-John, or John
the son of John, or John Johnson, as now in use. This was in the first
Edward's time: nay, so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in some
places in France they had no surnames, but only Christian names, as the
learned Monsieur Menage informs us: 'Il y a environ cent ans, à ce que
dit M. Baluze, qu'à Tulle on n'avait que des noms propres, et point de
surnoms.'--_Menagiana_, tom. i. p. 116. edit. 1729."
Again, in Cole's MSS., vol. xliii. p. 176., relating to a deed of the
Priory of Spalding, Cole says:
"One observes in this deed several particulars: first that the Priory
used a seal with an image of the Blessed Virgin, together with one of
their arms; if possibly they used one of the latter sort so early as
this John the Spaniard's time, in the reign, as I conceive, of King
Richard I., when arms for the chief gentry were hardly introduced.
Among the witnesses are two Simons, one distinguished by his
complexion, and called Simon Blondus, or the Fair; the other had no
name as yet to distinguish him by, and therefore only called here
'another Simon.' This occasioned the introduction of sirnames, and
shows the necessity of them."