The Dering Roll[1] is the oldest English roll of arms surviving in its original form. It was made between 1270 and 1280 and contains the coat of arms of 324 knights, starting with two illegitimate children of King John. Sir Edward Dering[2] acquired the roll during the 17th century and modified it to include a fictitious ancestor of his own.[3] It was eventually purchased by the British Library (as Add. Roll 77720) following fundraising involving a number of other charities and individuals.
Glover's Roll, made in 1586, is a copy of a now lost roll dating from even earlier, from the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272).[4]
Description
The Dering Roll depicts the coats of arms of around a quarter of the English baronage during the era of Edward I.[5] Emphasis was given to knights from Sussex and Kent,[5] as it was produced in Dover between 1270 and 1280 and the document was designed to list the knights who owed feudal service there.[6][7] It depicts 324 coats of arms,[8] beginning with Richard Fitz Roy and William de Say, two of King John's illegitimate sons.[8] The shields are arranged in 54 rows, with six shields on each line. Above each shield reads the knight's name, except in six cases where it has been omitted or removed.[8]Stephen de Pencester may have commissioned the roll during his time as Constable of Dover Castle.[7]
Dering's amendment
Sir Edward Dering acquired the Roll whilst lieutenant of Dover Castle,[8] and made his modification after 1638, removing the coat of arms of Nicholas de Crioll and inserting his own coat of arms with a fictitious ancestor named Richard Fitz Dering[9] in order to improve the history of his own family.[5][10] This appears adjacent to the shield for Thomas de Marines (or a cross engrailed gules).[11]
The trail of Richard fitz Dering (built upon sources dependent upon Dering's collections) leads, or was intended to lead, to the manor of Heyton in Stanford, Kent (where the supposed FitzDering connection with Marinis or Morinis is given credence by Edward Hasted[12]), and is exemplified by charters like that in Thomas Willement's hands.[13] A descent through a branch of the de Haute family of Wadenhall, Waltham, Kent was then indicated,[14][15] but Sir Edward Dering's constructive approach to genealogy leaves many of the sources bedevilled by doubts of authenticity.[16][17]
It is now on display at the Sir John Ritblat Gallery in the British Library,[8] and available to researchers in the library's manuscripts reading room.[7]
^Wagner, A. R. (1960). English Genealogy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 310.
^Planché, J. R. (1873). The Pursuivant of Arms; or Heraldry Founded on Facts. London. p. 30. Our earliest heraldic information is derived, at present (1852), from a copy made in 1586 by Glover, Somerset Herald, of a roll of arms of the reign of Henry III{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^J. Greenstreet and C. Russell, 'The "Dering" Roll of Arms (continued)', The Reliquary, Quarterly Archaeological Journal and Review (ed. Llewellynn Jewitt), XVI (1875-76), pp. 235-40, at p. 239 & note.
^Ellis, William Smith (1883). "Early Kentish Armory". Archaeologia Cantiana. 15: 1–30, at p. 9 & note.
^E. Hasted, 'Parishes: Stanford', in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, Vol. 8 (Canterbury, 1799), pp. 63-78 (British History Online, accessed 11 October 2017).
^T. Willement, Heraldic Notices of Canterbury Cathedral with Genealogical and Topographical Notes (Harding, Lepard & Co, London 1827), p. 106, no. 351, and note 'k'.
^The connection of Haute and de Marinis is explored in Davis, W. G. (1955). "Haute". The Ancestry of Mary Isaac, c. 1549–1613. Portland, Maine: Anthoensen Press. pp. 97–193 (at pp. 99–128).
^Harris, O. D. (2016). "Lines of descent: appropriations of ancestry in stone and parchment". In Rist, T.; Gordon, A. (eds.). The Arts of Remembrance in Early Modern England: memorial cultures of the post-Reformation. London: Routledge. pp. 85–104. ISBN9781409446576..
^Brault, Gerard J., ed. (1997). Rolls of Arms: Edward I (1272–1307). Woodbridge: Boydell Press for the Society of Antiquaries of London. ISBN085115669X.