de Mouilpied Coat of Arms

In the left column there is a small Coat of Arms that is said to be the deMoulpied/deMouilpied Family Coat of Arms. Not to be confused with a shield, which is just the shield, or the Crest which is the top of the Coat of Arms.

Several cousins had the same exact Coat of Arms, even though the cousins had not known each other and were from distant branches. So we can assume that this Coat of Arms must be authentic.

The words that come with the Coats are in French. The owner of the Coats was Lord of Mouillepied et Boismasson. The other explanation that came with the Coats is that the name was actually Du Port, Marquis of Poncherra, when the family was in France.

Now, Lords in France were land owners. Marquis were an additional title given by the King through Letter Patents. (tracking down historical documents of the Letters Patent might confirm this. Anyone going to Paris?) A Marquis is like a Duke or Governor, usually also protecting the area. France in the 1500's had a very well established feudal system. Guernsey on the other hand, always had a semi-feudal system - No Dukes , Counts, Marquis or Knights, just Lords who were land owners.

So we have concluded that this Coat of Arms originated near the La Rochelle area since that is where there still exists the land area Bois Masson and Mouillepied. What is very interesting is the name says Du Port (of Port) which perhaps has to do with being the Marquis of La Rochelle which is a city on the water. As I had said in the first blog, we also concluded that this original Du Port fled France in the late 1500's to Guernsey ( a lot of Huguenots fled to Guernsey) and took on the name de Mouilpied in honor of from where he came.

So back to the Coat of Arms. These were often held by an individual family. Sometimes the Coats would change through marriage or through each generation. For instance, another family on Guernsey, the Blondels, have several Coats because of changing over the times. It appears that the deMouilpied Coat of Arms remained the same as far as we know. ( I think because of the cool story) Unless of course someone out there tells us all other wise. There is also somewhere "out there" a large genealogy chart, printed by hand, around 200 years old with the family Coats on the very top. More later about the motto on the Coats...