Category:Coats of arms of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby

Basic arms & blazon[edit]

The earliest recorded seat of the de Ferrers family was the manor of Ferrières-Saint-Hilaire in Normandy, an important centre for ironworking, perhaps the reason the manor took its name. The Norman surname de Ferrières (simplified to de Ferrers) was Latinized as de Ferrariis literally "from the blacksmiths".^[1] The French verb ferrer (from fer (iron) (from Latin ferrum) signifies "to garnish with iron"^[2] thus " to shoe a horse", hence the English word "farrier". For this reason many sources say that the early heraldic device of the de Ferrers family was a horse-shoe, or six black ones on a white background, blazoned: Argent, six horseshoes sable. However Fox-Davies in his Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909) suggests that these were in fact the arms of the Marshal family, the ancient military office of marshal being responsible for the care (and thus shoeing) of war-horses^[3] (the first wife of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby (c.1193-1254) (by whom he had only daughters) was Sibyl Marshal, a daughter of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, by his wife Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke). In reality the arms adopted by the de Ferrers family at the start of the age of heraldry (c.1200-1215) were: Vairy, or and gules. However William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby (c.1193-1254) (whose father was the first in the heraldic era) added to his paternal arms A bordure azure (or sable) charged with eight horseshoes argent,^[4] perhaps as a mark of difference.

1. ↑ Cassell's Latin Dictionary, Marchant, J.R.V, & Charles, Joseph F., (Eds.), Revised Edition, 1928, ferrarius, a blacksmith
2. ↑ Larousse, Dictionnaire de la langue francise, "Lexis", Paris, 1979, p.735: "ferrer: garnir un objet avec du fer"
3. ↑ Larousse, Dictionnaire de la langue francise, "Lexis", Paris, 1979, p.1107, Maréchal (marhskalk, 1155), officier chargé du soin des chevaux
4. ↑ Cokayne, G. E.; Gibbs, Vicary & Doubleday, H. A., eds. (1926). The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct or dormant (Eardley of Spalding to Goojerat). 5 (2nd ed.). London, p.340, note (d)