The French surname of BOISHARDY was a locational name 'of de Bois' the dweller in a wood or from the nickname for a young servant. The earliest French hereditary surnames are found in the 12th century, at more or less the same time as they arose in England, but they are by no means common before the 13th century, and it was not until the 15th century that they stabilized to any great extent; before then a surname might be handed down for two or three generations, but then abandoned in favour of another. In the south, many French surnames have come in from Italy over the centuries, and in Northern France, Germanic influence can often be detected. The name was brought into England in the wake of the Norman Invasion of 1066, and Boi (without surname) listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 appears to be the first of the name on record. Ivo le Boye was mentioned in the year 1185 in County Lincolnshire, and Nicholas del Boise was recorded in the year 1201 in London. John de Boys was the rector of Fincham, County Norfolk in the year 1350. Edward Boyse of Yorkshire, was listed in the Yorkshire Poll Tax on 1379. The earliest hereditary surnames in England are found shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and are of Norman French origin rather than native English. On the arrival of the Normans they identified themselves by references to the estates from which they came in northern France. These names moved rapidly on with their bearers into Scotland and Ireland. Others of the Norman Invaders took names from the estates in England which they had newly acquired. Most of the European surnames in countries such as England, Scotland and France were formed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The process had started somewhat earlier and had continued in some places into the 19th century, but the norm is that in the tenth and eleventh centuries people did not have surnames, whereas by the fifteenth century most of the population had acquired a second name. The associated coat of arms is recorded in Rietstaps Armorial General. Registered in Breton, France. The lion depicted in the arms is the noblest of all wild beasts which is made to be the emblem of strength and valour, and is on that account the most frequently borne in Coat-Armour. |
