Layzell

This distinguished surname is of Norman origin, and is a locational name from Lacelle, a place in Orne, Normandy, so called from the Old French "la", the, with "celle", hermit's cell (from the Latin "cella", small room). The name was introduced into England after the Conquest of 1066, and first appears on record in the mid 12th Century (see below). A number of bearers of this name, found in the 12th and 13th Centuries in Northern England, have a common ancestor in Picot de Lascelles, a vassal of the Count of Brittany, who in 1180 was noted in the Knights Templars Records of Yorkshire. The name is particularly well recorded in the 1273 Hundred Rolls of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, taking the forms "de Lassell, de Lascelle" and "de Lasceles". All namebearers were major landholders in these two counties. In the modern idiom the surname is spelt: Lascelles, Lasselles, Lascell, Lasalle, Layzell and Leyzell. On December 3rd 1797, John Layzell and Margaret Easthope were married at St. Mary's, Marylebone Road, London. The Coat of Arms most associated with the name is a silver shield with three red chaplets. A green griffin's head emerging from a gold ducal coronet, forms the Crest. In ancient times, chaplets and wreaths were given to individual soldiers who had performed a deed of special valour on the battlefield. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Roger de Lascelles, which was dated 1130, in the "Records of Landholders in Yorkshire", during the reign of King Henry 1, known as "The Lion of Justice", 1100 - 1135. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.