The Dering Roll is the oldest English

roll of arms A roll of arms (or armorial) is a collection of coats of arms, usually consisting of rows of painted pictures of shields, each shield accompanied by the name of the person bearing the arms. The oldest extant armorials date to the mid-13th centur ...

surviving in its original form. It was made between 1270 and 1280 and contains the

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

of 324 knights, starting with two illegitimate children of King John. Sir Edward Dering acquired the roll during the 17th century and modified it to include a fictitious ancestor of his own. It was eventually purchased by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Britis ...

(as Add Roll 77720) following fund raising 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).

Description

The Dering Roll depicts the coats of arms of around a quarter of the English

baronage {{English Feudalism In England, the ''baronage'' was the collectively inclusive term denoting all members of the feudal nobility, as observed by the constitutional authority Edward Coke. It was replaced eventually by the term '' peerage''. Or ...

during the era of

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vass ...

. Emphasis was given to knights from

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...

and

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it fac ...

, as it was produced in

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidsto ...

between 1270 and 1280 and the document was designed to list the knights who owed

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

service there. It depicts 324

coats of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in it ...

, beginning with Richard Fitz Roy and William de Say, two of King John's illegitimate sons. 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. Stephen de Pencester may have commissioned the roll during his time as Constable of Dover Castle.

Dering's amendment

Sir Edward Dering acquired the Roll whilst lieutenant of Dover Castle, 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 in order to improve the history of his own family. This appears adjacent to the shield for Thomas de Marines (''or a cross engrailed gules''). 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), and is exemplified by charters like that in

Thomas Willement Thomas Willement (18 July 1786 – 10 March 1871) was an English stained glass artist, called "the father of Victorian stained glass", active from 1811 to 1865. Biography Willement was born at St Marylebone, London. Like many early 19th centu ...

's hands. A descent through a branch of the de Haute family of Wadenhall, Waltham, Kent was then indicated, but Sir Edward Dering's constructive approach to genealogy leaves many of the sources bedevilled by doubts of authenticity.

Recent ownership

During the 20th century it was acquired by Sir Anthony Wagner. On 4 December 2007, the roll was sold at auction at

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

for the sum of £192,000 to a private individual who subsequently applied for an export licence. The

Department for Culture, Media and Sport , type = Department , logo = Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport logo.svg , logo_width = , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = Gove ...

placed a temporary block on the roll being moved overseas and the

led efforts to purchase it, after the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art confirmed it to be of sufficient importance and significance. The library raised £194,184 to acquire the roll; the Head of Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts, Claire Breay said of the purchase, "the acquisition of the Dering Roll provides an extremely rare chance to add a manuscript of enormous local and national significance." They were assisted in funding the purchase from

The Art Fund Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund) is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as ...

(£40,000), the

National Heritage Memorial Fund The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was set up in 1980 to save the most outstanding parts of the British national heritage, in memory of those who have given their lives for the UK. It replaced the National Land Fund which had fulfilled the ...

(£100,000),

Friends of the British Library The Friends of the British Library is a registered charitable organisation in the UK with close links to the British Library. It provides funding in the form of grants to the British Library in order to allow the Library to acquire new items a ...

(£10,000), Friends of the National Libraries (£10,000), and a number of individual benefactors. It is now on display at the Sir John Ritblat Gallery in the British Library, and available to researchers in the library's manuscripts reading room.

Modern illustrations of arms

File:The Dering Roll of Arms - Panel 1 - 1 to 54.png, PANEL 1 - 1 to 54 File:The Dering Roll of Arms - Panel 2 - 55 to 108.png, PANEL 2 - 55 to 108 File:The Dering Roll of Arms - Panel 3 - 109 to 162.png, PANEL 3 - 109 to 162 File:The Dering Roll of Arms - Panel 4 - 163 to 216.png, PANEL 4 - 163 to 216 File:The Dering Roll of Arms - Panel 5 - 217 to 270.png, PANEL 5 - 217 to 270 File:The Dering Roll of Arms - Panel 6 - 271 to 324.png, PANEL 6 - 271 to 324

External links

*http://www.bsswebsite.me.uk/History/Dering/dering-roll.html Images of original roll and modern renderings

References