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The history of the name Fenner is interwoven with the history of England. Prior to the arrival of the Romans, the island had been inhabited largely by tribes of Celts, whose culture still survives to greater and lesser degrees in the north and west, in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. The Romans took control of Britain in A.D. 43, largely by political alliances rather than brute force. Nonetheless, disputes between the Romans and natives led to a significant uprising in 60–61, led by Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, which was decisively squashed, leading to general political stability for over 300 years. Among the Romans’ most lasting marks on the island were the introduction of Christianity and the construction of Hadrian’s Wall. The Romans relinquished control of the island in 410, and much of the Roman economy went with them. Consequently, the remaining populace shifted and adapted to their absence, and the abandonment of some territories, especially in the east, left open a door to immigration. Historian Robin Fleming described the general state of the island in those immediate post-Roman years:

It is at just this time, around 420, that Germanic-speaking immigrants were beginning to make their way to eastern Britain. . . . Most were from northern Germany, Frisia, or southern Scandinavia (the eighth-century historian the Venerable Bene tells us, famously, that they were Saxons, Angles, and Jutes), and they met the ancient definition of barbarian: they spoke neither Greek nor Latin, and they were newly arrived from beyond the empire’s frontiers. . . . Most of what the people washing up on Britain’s shores knew about Rome was second-hand at best. . . . They wanted land to farm, and they must have hoped for woods where their swine could forage.

A few peasant-farmers arrived in the south-east and in East Anglia in the first decades of the fifth century; these earlier settlers were then followed by larger-scale migrations beginning sometime mid-century, and immigrants were still braving the seas with their children and their household goods in the middle of the sixth century. The arrival of these people in Britain, therefore, did not constitute a single, dramatic moment, and their coming cannot be characterized as an invasion. The overwhelming preponderance of fifth-century evidence relates to Germanic immigrants who farmed rather than fought, and to newcomers whose little communities were comprised not of battle-hardened warriors, but of pregnant women, small children, and hard-laboring men.

—Britain After Rome (2011), pp. 39–42

Post-Roman linguistic development included the emergence of the term fen or fenne, referring to a marsh-like lowland. Similar terms can be found in German (fenn) and Dutch (veen). The largest such area in Britain is the eastern fenland, encompassing large swaths of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk. Over the next several centuries, the island was ruled mainly by regional people groups and power structures, lacking a central authority figure (a monarch), but the culture of the island came to be associated with the people who settled in the southeast, sometimes called Anglos, Anglians, or Anglicans, and the prevailing name of the island became Ængle-land.

Starting around 793, the island endured a series of invasions by Norse Vikings (the Danes), especially in the north and east. The fenland was particularly troublesome to invaders because the ground was so unstable. They were eventually expelled, and governance of England started to solidify around a single monarchy, beginning with Athelstan (927–939). Some descendants of this monarchy had been expelled to French Normandy in 1016. A dispute as to the rightful successor to King Edward the Confessor, who died 5 January 1066, led to the uprising of William of Normandy against Harold Godwinson, who had claimed the throne. The people of the fens, if they participated in the conflict, would have followed Harold from the northeast to meet William at the southern shore. In the famed battle of Hastings, 14 October 1066, William and the Normans prevailed and took the throne.

Twenty years later, William ordered a census of land owners, popularly known as the Domesday Book, which is now housed in the U.K. National Archives. In this census, the name Fenne appeared twice as a place name, once in Essex as the property of Geoffrey de Mandeville, and once in Herefordshire, where the Fenne was listed as the property of William Fitz Norman.

According to records compiled by the English Place Name Society, several localities with variations of the name Fenne have existed in the area of the eastern fens or fenland, including The Little Fenne (16th cen.), near present-day Ingham in Norfolk, and the manor Heryngby Fennes (15th cen.) near Stokesby in Norfolk. Two places named Atte Fenne were attested in the 13th and 14th centuries in county Rutland. A little bit farther to the north, several places in Lincolnshire have carried names like Fenne, Northfenne, Southfenne, and Westfenne. But the name was not limited to the eastern fens. On the southern coast, three places named “de la Fenne” or “in la Fenne” were attested in the 13th and 14th centuries in Dorset.

The people of the Fenne came to be known by the place where they once lived, especially “atte Fenne,” or “de la Fenne.” In the British National Archives, surviving records of people bearing these place names can be found from the beginning of the 13th century through the 15th century. In records preserved by Canterbury Cathedral, Simon de la Fenne was granted land ca. 1191–1213 (CCA-DCc-Register/B, fols. 192v-193r). In 1306, Walter Beaupel atte Fenne was listed as a debtor in Exeter (National Archives, C 241/49/49). By the late 14th century, the name started to appear with the simpler designation “Fenner.” For example, during the reign of Richard II (1377–1399), Adam and Katharine Fenner were granted tenements in the parish of St. Michael in London (LR 14/538).

Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, three brothers (George, Edward, Thomas) and one cousin (William) rose to prominence in the British Navy under the leadership of Sir Francis Drake. In 1588, Thomas was Vice Admiral of the fleet and served on her majesty’s Council of War, while Edward and William had become rear admirals, and they all fought against the Spanish armada. Another Englishman, Captain Arthur Fenner, served under Oliver Cromwell, and he sailed to the colonies in 1649 to become the progenitor of a long line of descendants in America.

Variants of the name Fenner appear in other places across continental Europe:

French

Fenner is sometimes believed to be a transliteration of the French Veneur or Venour, and has its roots in a lineage of master huntsman in Normandy starting in the 10th century, especially Gualtier le Veneur (“Walter the hunter”), who fought alongside Duke Richard I of Normandy (932–996) against the French in the Battle of the Fords in 960. A descendant was Gislebert le Grand Veneur (or Venator [“hunter” in Latin], from Venables), who fought alongside William the Conqueror in 1066 and subsequently was granted extensive land holdings in England. He is known mainly as the first Baron of Kinderton, and his descendants carry the place-name Venables, from where he had lived in France.

The transliteration of Venour to Fenner appears to be rare, but an interesting example is preserved in the British National Archives. In 1389–1390, the Lord Mayor of London was Wyllyam Venour, but when an outstanding debt of £60 was registered to Thomas Daniel of Bristol on 10 June 1396, the mayor under whom the debt was incurred, in 1389, was recorded as William Fenner (C 241/183/8), thus illustrating the potentially interchangeable nature of the names. Nonetheless, the Venour name survived in England into the 20th century, as have other related French clans such as Venables and Grosvenor (“big hunter,” descendants of Hugh Lupus de Avranches).

German

As in English, the term fenn refers to a marshland in the German language. Consequently, Germany has been home to many Fenners, including the Fenner von Fenneberg family, whose roots date as far back as the 16th century. A significant branch of American Fenners came from Stephen Fenner (1722–1800), whose family settled in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in the mid-1700s.

Swiss

In Switzerland, Fenners with apparent Germanic roots settled in the county of Dubendorf, Kanton Zurich, in 1306. A significant branch of Swiss-American Fenners traces back to Hans Rudolph Fenner (born 1629), whose grandson Hans Heinrich Fenner emigrated to Philadelphia in 1743.

COAT OF ARMS

According to John Burke’s General Armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1851), the coat of arms belonging to the Fenners of Sussex and Middlesex, England, is as follows:

“Vert a cross argent charged with a cross formee gules between four eagles displayed of the second.”

And above the shield and helmet is the crest described as:

“An eagle displayed argent membered or.”

Translated: “Green, a silver cross charged with a red cross between four silver eagles with spread wings.” Above the shield and helmet, “a silver eagle, wings spread, beak and legs in gold.”

Vert—Green; signifies hope, joy, and sometimes loyalty in love. Cross—Being crossed at each four points is said to signify “the fourfold mystery of the cross.” The cross also signifies faith, hope, and charity. Gules—Red; denotes military fortitude and magnamity; the “Martyr’s Color.” Eagles—Which are usually represented with wings spread, signifies a man of action. Eagles are a symbol of power.

This coat of arms was also depicted in Middlesex Pedigrees (1914), associated with an unknown Robert Fenner.

Further Reading

Mark Antony Lower, “Fenn,” “Fenner,” Patronymica Britannica: A Dictionary of the Family Names of the United Kingdom (London: J.R. Smith, 1860), p. 111: Archive.org

Richard Heath, “Fen-land and fen-men,” The English Peasant (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1893), pp. 109–120: Archive.org

Robin Fleming, Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070 (NY: Penguin, 2011): Amazon

Susan Oosthuizen, The Anglo-Saxon Fenland (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017): Amazon