From the book "George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert, Barons Baltimore of Baltimore" by Wm. Hand Browne, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, 1890. pp 1-2 "The origin of the Calvert family is obscure. There were Calverts, or Calverds, in Yorkshire as early as the fourteenth century, the name of Margareta Calverd appearing on the Durham Halmote, or Manorial Rolls in 1366; but none of the genealogies affords us the means of tracing from these the family of the founder of Maryland. The biographies usually speakof the Calverts as of Flemish extraction, which is not improbable as Calvartor Calvaert is a well-known Flemish name, but their lineagea-at least the Yorkshire Calverts-has never been traced back to Flanders. In the exemplification of arms issued in 1622 by Richard St. George, Norroy king of arms, to Sir George Calvert, it is stated on the authority of Verstegan, the antiquary andphilologist, "that the said Sir George is descended of a noble auntient familie of that surname in the earldom of Flanders, where they have lived long ingreat honor, and have had great possessions, their principall and auntient seat being at Warvickoe in the said province. And at theis later tymes two bretheren of that surname, vid: Jaques Calvert, lord of Severe, two leagues from Gaunt, remayned in the Netherland broyles on the side of the Kinge of Spayne, and hath a sonne who at this present is in honourable place and office inthe Parliament Courte at Macklyn, and Levinus Calverte the younger brother tooke parte with the States of Holland, and was by them ymployed at their agent with Henry the fourth late Kinge of Fraunce, which Levinus Calvert left a sonne in France, whom the foresaid Kinge entertayned as a gentleman of his bedchamber." He goes on to say, on the same authority, that the proper armorialbearings on the Calverts are, "or, three marletts sables, with this creast, vizt., the upper part or halves of two launces, the bandroll of the first, sables, and the second, or; " and then declares that the arms which the Calverts have borne in England are "paley of six pieces, or and sables, a bend counterchanged," to which he adds, as a crest, the two half-lances with their bandroll, or small banners, or black and gold standing in a ducal crown. It wouldseem from this that Norroy did not quite see his way clear to affiliate Sir George to the Flemish Calverts; but he has no objection to intimate it heraldically by the addition of the Flemish crest as an honorable augmentation tohis proper ancestral bearings." Vicki K. wrote: James W. Foster, in his book on the Calverts "gives some of the family background. He states that George was born and died a Roman Catholic. ....the Calverts were not from the migration of Flemish weavers attracted to Yorkshire because of its fame for wood growing. Based on the evidence of wills and inventories, the Calverts of Yorkshire in the 16th century were tenant farmers, husbandsmen, and yeomen of standing, and in the case of Leonrard of Kiplin, a gentlement when that term signified superior social position.
©2013 material from Norvan L. Johnson; historical notes used with permission to Theo Janssen.
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