Maressa at [email protected] wrote: >Would someone please send me information on the origin of the name Page. I can't seem to locate this information. >Thanking you for your help. Quoting, with the footnotes renumbered, from pp. 27-28 of my book, "The Descendants of Robart Page of the King's House - The Probable English Origins, Ancestors, and Relatives of George Page of Branford Connecticut and Thomas Page of Saco in the Province of Maine" written and published by me in 1992: "Origins of the Page Name "From "The Dictionary of the Ancestral Heads of the New England Families 1620-1700," by Frank R. Holmes, we learn that Page was an occupational name given to youths of the gentry class between seven and fourteen years of age while receiving their education to become a squire and then a knight. "The origin of the word "Page" is supposed to be Italian for "Paggie" or from the Latin "Pagius," meaning a boy or youth attending the king. Boys of noble parentage who were at the royal court were called "Pages." It was quite an honor much sought after, as the surroundings and the acquaintances made at court were valuable to personal advancement. A course of training in courtesy, etiquette, and diplomacy was given these boys, and the place where they lived and trained was called a "Page Home," shortened to "Pageham," also sometimes written "Pagham" or "Pagenham." Different spellings are attributed to the fact that few people could read or write. Members of the nobility hired a scribe to perform these services for them and signed the papers with a signet ring or stamp which bore their crest or insignia.(1.) This was another important reason for heraldry and coats-of-arms. "Another interesting possible source of the Kentish Page family name may come from the old word "Pa-age" or passage money; a tax anciently levied on travelers bound for the crusades at Rochester, county Kent.(2.) "Pagham (Pagenharn) and Packenham "There is some confusion between Pageham and Pakenham; but one family was named from Pageham on the south coast of England near Chichester and Bognor Regis in county Sussex, and the other from Pakenham in county Suffolk, about five miles east of Bury St. Edmunds and seventeen miles north of Sudbury. "The first known mention of the name de [of] Pageham (or de Pagham) was a John de Pagham (d. 1158), the fourth bishop of Worcester, England, from 1151-1157. He was probably a native of Pagham, Sussex. He had been one of the clerks under Archbishop Theobald, and was consecrated by him to the See of Worcester on 4 March 1151. He assisted at the consecration of Roger to the See of York on 10 October 1154, and at the coronation of Henry II on 19 December of the same year. He gave the churches of Bensington, Oxfordshire, and Turkdean, Gloucester, to the monastery of Osney. He died at Rome, it is said, on 31 March 1158. (3.) "The names of Walter Page and Johnnes le Page (from the vicinity of Northamptonshire) appear in the Close Rolls in the year 1231 (15 Henry III), and the name Serlonem (Serlonis) Page appears in 1234 (18 Henry 111).(4) "According to research done in England circa 1917 by Charles Nash Page of Point Lomas, California, in the year 1256-1257 King Henry III of England sent a Hugo de Pageham, of Ebor [sic, Eboracum, an ancient Roman city which is present-day York, England, where there was a palace of Henry III], Yorkshire on an important mission to the King of Spain. He was supposedly knighted in 1260 by Henry III, and his title was proclaimed by the heralds giving notice that he was subsequently to be known as Sir Hugo Page. From that time on, Page was adopted as his family name.(5) [I found no record of his knighthood!] "Hugonem Pageham and Roberturn de la Barre are referred to in Thomas Rymer's "Foedera (Acts of the Kings of England)" in 41st (year of the reign of) Henry III, A.D. 1257, where the letter to the King of Spain is written in Latin. The only short reference to the couriers themselves is also in Latin dated 15 Sep. 1257...." 1. Theda Page Brigham, "Descendants of John Page (1614-1687)" (Haverhill, Mass.: Haverhill Historical Society, 1972), p. 168. 2. "Archaelogia Cantiana," Vol. VI by the Kent Archaeological Society, 3.John Le Neve, "Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanne," iii, 49", first publ. 1716, ed. by T.D. Hardy, 1854. See also "Dictionary of National Biography," p. 45. 4. "Close Rolls, 1227-1231" (Public Records Office, London: H.M.S.O., 1900-), pp. 430, 469, 422-423. 5. Charles N. Page, "History and Genealogy of the Page Family From the Year 1257 to the Present" (Des Moines: By the author, 1917), p. 16. George W. Page Col., U.S. Army (Ret.) Bryans Road, MD 20616