Mount

This surname is of pre 7th century Old French origins. It was introduced into England at the Norman Conquest of 1066, and is a residential name either for someone who lived at a place called Mont or Mount, or topographical fro a person who lived on a hill. Topographical surnames were among the earliest created, since both natural and man-made features in the landscape provided easily recognisable names in the small communities of the Middle Ages. The surname dates back to the early 14th Century (see below), and other recordings include: Richard le Monter recorded in the Subsidy Rolls of Somerset in 1327, and Alan atte Mount listed in the Close Rolls of London in 1334. Recordings from early surviving church registers from the city of London include those of the marriage of Stephen Mountt and Ellsibethe Jewry on October 30th 1586, at St. Olave's Hart Street, and the christening of Eldrington Mount on August 24th 1590, at St. Margaret's, Westminster. A coat of arms granted to the Mount family has the blazon of a silver shield, with a red lion rampant on a green mount, the crest being a fox saliant supporting the trunk of a tree. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard del Mount,. This was dated 1301, in the Subsidy Rolls of Yorkshire, during the reign of King Edward 1st of England, 1272 - 1307. 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.