Durant

This, as a Christian name, is pretty frequently found in Domesday. Besides Durandus Vicecomes, who held a barony in four different counties, two others, Durandus tonsor (the barber) and Durandus carpentarius (the carpenter), both held in capite: and Durandus prepositus, Durandus canonicus S. Pauli, &c, were under-tenants.

I think it is only with the first named, Durandus the Viscount, that we need here concern ourselves. He was brother of Roger de Pistres, who had preceded him in the office of sheriff. "From the cartulary of St. Peter's, Gloucester, we learn that the brothers Roger and Durand bore the name of De Pistres, so they must have come from that now rural village of Pistres which nestles amid the' trees on the banks of the Seine, some miles above Rouen, at the foot of the Cote des Deux Amants, so well known, even in those days, for its romantic legend. At this obscure place the Carlovingian kings had had a palace, a converted Gallic Roman villa, where ecclesiastical councils were held more than once. The brothers had evidently come into the West with William Fitz-Osbern."—A. S. Ellis. Roger had died before 1072, leaving his son Walter under age; and the shrievalty of Gloucester, "evidently granted to him, as in the case of Edward of Salisbury, with certain conditions as to a minority occurring," passed to his brother. Durand held it as a life-tenant; and Walter only succeeded to it at his death, 1101. He left no posterity. "It is particularly interesting to find him in possession of Caldecot in Monmouthshire, in 1086. He, or Roger, in all probability at the instance of Earl William, had laid the foundations of the castle there, which together with the office of hereditary Lord High Constable of England, was to be held for so many generations by the great family of Bohun, as descendants of Roger. The dignity of High Constable evidently grew out of the constableship of Gloucester, which Walter held, if not his father, and uncle."—Ibid.

Durant, as a surname, is subsequently to be found in almost every county in England. In the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. it is abundantly represented, chiefly in Norfolk, Lincoln, Devon and Kent; and at about the same date, Sir Walter Durant was Bailiff of Ashdown Forest, Sussex. From him descended the Durants of Yarnton, in Oxfordshire. Richard Durant, a land-owner in Somerset, was knight of the shire for Middlesex in 1316: and Robert Durant was pardoned as an adherent of the Earl of Lancaster in 1316. (Palgrave's Parl. Writs.) John Durant, temp. Elizabeth, held Cottesmore in Rutland of the Queen by fealty and the rent of one pair of spurs: "they had," says the county historian, "been a long time seated here: this ancient and honourable name is now quite worn out in Rutland." Durant of Durant Hall, in Derbyshire, became extinct, according to Lysons, about 1600; but the existing baronets of this name claim descent from a cadet of this house, who settled at Scottowe, their present seat in Norfolk, at the beginning of that century.

-- Cleveland