Geoffrey de Chamel was one of the sub-feoffees of Bertram de Verdon in Staffordshire (Liber Niger). Twenty-four years later, “Girardus d’ Camul” is mentioned in Richard Cœur de Lion’s grant of the Earldom of Sadberge as holding two knight’s fees in Lincolnshire.—Surtees' Durham. In Dorsetshire, Robert Camel held half a knight’s fee of the Bishop of Salisbury in Sherborne; and a charter, sans date, of William Earl of Gloucester “testifies that Ralph de Chamel, a man of the Abbot of Tewkesbury, did before him at Tewkesbury quit claim to a hide of land in Ceotel” (Chettle) “which his father formerly sold to them, declared that he had given them unjust vexation, and that, when a youth, as heir to his father, he confirmed the sale, at which he was present. The said Ralph, and William his son and heir swore on the gospels, in the chapter-house of Tewkesbury, that neither they nor their heirs would at any time vex them on account of the said land.”—Hutchins' Dorset. Thomas Camel represented the borough of Shaftesbury in Parliament several times under Richard II. and Henry IV.; and John Cammel, in 1433, was one of “the considerable men in the county, able to dispend £12 per annum." During the previous reign, Robert Camyl had acquired Shapwick-Plecy, or Cammels, through his wife Joan, sister and heir of John Plecy; and it was successively held by his son, grandson, and great-grandson; the latter dying s. p. in 1505. They gave as their arms Argent a chevron between three camels Sable . “There lyith one Camel a Gentilman in a fair Tumbe in the South part of the Transept of the Chirche” (Glastonbury).—Leland. The name is to be found in several other counties. Tor Bryan, in Devonshire, “in the age of Henry III.” was held by Richard Cammel of Guy de Bryan. —Pole's Devon. William Camel occurs there in the Rotuli Hundredorum about 1272. John de Kammel was joint sheriff of Essex 53 Hen. III. “D’n’s Ricardus Camel” had the Great Seal entrusted to him by the King in 1321, to be carried to Queen Isabel.”—Palgrave's Parliamentary Writs. Thomas Camul, in 1642, gave some land that twelve poor persons of Walthamstow might receive a penny loaf every Sunday, and a benefaction at Christmas.—Morant's Essex. Some Cammels seated in Norfolk bore Gironne of 8, Or and Sable, a crescent Argent.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, de Cormelies. Cormeilles; a local name