Mortimer

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For Mortimer in Berkshire, see Mortimer common. For the town in Shropshire, see Cleobury Mortimer. For the Disney character, see Mortimer Mouse. For the place in California, see Mortimer, California.

Mortimer is a popular English name, used both as a surname and a given name.

Noble family

Mortimer Coat of arms

Norman origins

The origin of the name is almost certainly Norman^[1], but the details are disputed.

One version is that it derives from "Mortemer", site of the Cistercian Abbaye de Mortemer at Lisors near Lyons-la-Forêt and close to Rouen in Normandy. The land was gifted to the Cistercians by Henry II in the 1180s. Finding the land to be a marshy-land of the Lyons Forest around the running Fouillebroc Stream, the monks dug out a large drainage lake and built the Abbaye de Mortemer. The ruins and lake can still be visited, and the later XVIth century Abbey hosts tours.

There are two possible explanations: first, a small pond must have already existed before the land was given to the monks and have already called Mortemer like the two other Mortemer, because the word mer 'pond' was not used anymore beyond the Xth century. This word is only attested in North-Western France and of frankish or saxon origin *mari / meri 'mere', 'pond' (in Cambremer, Blingemer, etc..); mort(e) 'dead' is also quite common to mean 'stagnant' (in Port-Mort 'the port with stagnant water', Morteau 'dead water', etc.)^[2]. Second, the monks could have given the name Mortemer to their drainage lake to remember the other Mortemer for any kind of reason we don't know, making a pun at the same time with Mer Morte 'Dead Sea'.

The village of Mortemer further north in the Seine-Maritime area bears the same name and it predates the Abbey at Lisors of more than one hundred years.

Another version, which appears at least as far back the Elizabethan Era,^{[citation needed]} attributes the name to a Norman Knight who fought in the crusades and was distinguished in battle by the shores of the Dead Sea, but this is unsubstantiated and almost certainly a romanticised myth.

Medieval magnates

In the Middle Ages, the Mortimers were a powerful magnate family or dynasty of Marcher Lords in the Welsh Marches, centered around Wigmore Castle in Herefordshire, and from the 14th century holding the title of Earl of March.

Close to the throne of England

Through marriage, the Mortimers came during the reign of Richard II to be close to the English throne, but when Richard II was deposed in 1399, the claims of the Mortimers were ignored and the throne vested in the usurper Henry of Lancaster instead. The Mortimer claims were later (1425) transmitted to the House of York, which ultimately claimed them in the Wars of the Roses.

Successive Mortimers

Members of the noble Mortimer family included:

• Ranulph de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore Castle in Herefordshire and Seigneur of St. Victor-en-Caux, today Saint-Victor-l'Abbaye, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie
• Hugh de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore Castle
• Roger Mortimer of Wigmore
• Ralph de Mortimer
• Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer
• Edmund Mortimer, 2nd Baron Mortimer
• Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March
• Roger Mortimer, 2nd Earl of March
• Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March
• Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March
• Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March
• Thomas Mortimer, of Toton
• Edmund Mortimer, second son of the 3rd Earl of March, fought with Owain Glyndŵr and plotted with Henry Percy, "Hotspur," to depose King Henry IV of England and divide the Kingdom of England and Wales in three.

Other persons

• Bob Mortimer, English comedian
• Carole Mortimer, English novelist
• Emily Mortimer, English actress
• Favell Lee Mortimer, author of Reading Without Tears and Far Away
• Ian Mortimer, British writer
• James Mortimer, New Zealand hurdler
• John Mortimer, English barrister
• (Jennie Mortimer)) Australian entertainer
• Gary Mortimer, English aeronaut
• Colonel Douglas Mortimer, a character played by Lee Van Cleef in For a Few Dollars More

In Fiction

• Mortimer, a Robert Munsch character and story
• Mortimer, a fictional criminal in Italian comic book Zagor
• Mortimer Goth, a well known character from The Sims series.
• Mortimer Mouse, a fictional Disney character

Mortimer the mouse was originally created by Walt Disney. It was based on the mouse he got in the studios at Kansas City. As Walters wife heard the name she demanded it to be changed. At that time he changed it to Mickey Mouse.

• Mortimer Duke, a fictional character from the 1983 Comedy Film "Trading Places". Mortimer Duke was played by Don Amache.
• Philip Mortimer, a protagonist in Blake and Mortimer, a Belgian comics series created by Edgar P. Jacobs.

References

1. ^ C.P Lewis, Mortimer Roger (I) de (fl. 1054-c.1080) in Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography, Oxford University Press 2004.
2. ^ François de Beaurepaire, Les noms des communes et anciennes paroisses de la Seine-Maritime, éditions Picard 1979. ISBN 2-70840040-1.

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