The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. III.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Quintiny : or Quentin; originally, of course, a Christian name. A family of Quentin—the Quentins of Coupigny—still exists in Normandy, and bears Paly of six, Azure and Or. They came from Brittany, having expatriated themselves during the troublous times of Duchess Anne, and settled at Morigny, near Coutances, about 1450. Roger Quentin's claim to rank with the older nobility of the Duchy was recognized and confirmed in 1605 by the Cour des Aides of Rouen.

In England the first trace of the name that I have met with is in the reign of Coeur de Lion, when Richard de Quintine was Abbot of Furness in Cumberland. But the notices of it soon become numerous, and appear in at least half a dozen counties. Richard Quintin held a knight's fee of the Earl of Hereford in Wiltshire.—Testa de Nevill. About 1272, we find Thomas Quintin of Oxfordshire (it may be the same Thomas who, as Servientes, performed military service due from William de Braose in 1310); Adam Quintin of Huntingdon; Robert Quintin of Kent and Norfolk; William Quintin of Kent and Wilts; and three of the name, Henry, Edric, and Richard, in Suffolk.—Rotuli Hundredorum. John and Roger Quintin attended the muster of the Hundred of Loose, in the latter county, in 1326: and Alexander Quintin of Essex was summoned for military service in 1322, and to a great Council at Newcastle in 1330.—Palgrave's Parl. Writs. In Wiltshire, Henry Quintin was Custos of Graveley Forest in 1273, as was William Quintin of Wychford in 1289 and 1296.—Hoare's Wills. John Quintin was joint Lord of Highway in 1316: and in Cliffe Pypard Church there is a brass of a man in armour of this family, which probably dates from about 1380.

In Kent, at least, the Quintins remained for nearly three hundred years after that. Anceline de Quintin held Woodford and Wingfield in the time of Edward III. His descendant William Quintin bought an estate at Seale in the beginning of Henry VI.'s reign: and about 1560 Robert Quintin was seated at ne Grange, in the parish of Leybourne. Now comes the mysterious part of their story. "Thomas, the son of William Quintin of Seale, was often styled Thomas son of Oliver" (for what reason Hasted does not attempt to explain) "by which means his son John acquired the name of Quintin alias Oliver, by which he calls himself in his will, 32 Hen. VIII. His descendant Robert transposed his name, calling himself Robert Oliver alias Quintin, and resided at the Grange, as did his grandson Robert, who used the name of Oliver only, though in deeds and writings he wrote the name of Quintin likewise. He bore Ermine on a fesse Gules, three lions rampant Or, and died in the reign of Charles II., leaving Juliana his sole daughter and heir, who carried this estate in marriage to Edward Covert of Sussex."—Hasted's Kent.

A Gloucestershire proverb, "very frequent" in the seventeenth century, arose from the matrimonial misfortunes of one of this family. "W. Quintin of Hill having a pestilent angry and unquiet wife, much more insultinge over his milde nature than Zantippe over Socrates, was oft enforced to shelter himselfe from those stormes, to keepe his chamber: whence, hearing his neighbors complayninge of the unruliness of their towne bull, whom noe mounds would keepe out from spoilinge of their cornefeilds, the bull then bellowing before them, and they then in chasinge him towards the comon pounde: peepinge out of his chamber windowe, cryed to them: 'Neighbors, Neighbors, gett him a wife, gett him a wife;' meaninge, That by that meanes hee would bee made quiett and tamed as himselfe was: from whence this proverbe first arose."—Berkeley MSS.