The Carbonnels were Sires de Cérisy in the arrondissement of St. Lo, and originally bore Azure on a chief Gules three torteauxes Ermine. Their ancient castle, named Château Robert, stood in the valley traversed by the little river Aure, and from the foundations yet remaining, must have been of considerable extent. Cérisy was erected into a marquisate in favour of René de Carbonnel in 1643, and continued uninterruptedly in the possession of the family till its final extinction in 1700.

According to their genealogy, it was Hugh de Carbonnel, Sire de Cérisy, who was at the Conquest; and, thirty years afterwards, followed Robert Duke of Normandy to the Holy Land, and distinguished himself at the taking of Jeru­salem. Was he the same “Carbonel” who held a Herefordshire manor (Lacre) of the King in capite in 1086”? (Domesday.) The Carbonels were very early seated at Ashford-Carbonel, now included in Shropshire, but originally a vill in the Herefordshire parish of Little Hereford: and it has been plausibly suggested that they descended from the unnamed Francigena who held there under Osbern Fitz Richard at Domesday. Their earliest charter of feoffment was granted to William Carbonel about 1174-85. “Whether the Frenchman alluded to in this entry was the ancestor of the Carbonels I cannot say; but I think they were seated at Ashford at an earlier period than we should assign as the date of the Charter of Feoffment.”—Eyton's Salop. William’s son John “appears in 1226 among the chief knights of the county, which then made inquisition concerning the Forest of Stiperstones.” Hugh Carbonel held in 1316. I can meet with no later mention of the name in the county.

But it was abundantly represented elsewhere. There was a “Carbonellus” in Lincolnshire, holding land at Bleasby, in the parts of Lindsay, in n 14-1116 (Cotton MS. Claudius, c. 5). Durand Carbonel held one knight’s fee of Galfrid de Magneville in Essex in 1165 (Liber Niger): and William Carbonell (perhaps his kinsman) received Woodbury in Devonshire from Stephen de Mandeville in the time of Henry II.—Pole's Devon. Hamo Carbonel was of Buckinghamshire in 1194-99 (Rotuli Curiae Regis): and from him probably descended Peter Carbonel, Lord or joint Lord of Whitchurch, Bucks, Bainton and Fewcote, Oxon, and Bradley, Somerset, who was summoned to attend the great Council held at Westminster in 1324. The following year he was Commissioner of array in Bucks, and received a writ of military summons “to pass into Guienne under the command of the Earl Warrenne.” John Carbonel of Nottinghamshire, was similarly ordered to Guienne, at the same date. Three years before, he had been pardoned as an adherent of the Earl of Lancaster, submitting to a fine of 40s., “in consideration of which his life was saved.” Two Carbonels held in Norfolk in 1316; Henry at Rockland, and William at Burston.—Palgrave's Parl. Writs. Their line ended in the following century. “The estate of Bradeston was brought by Margery de Caston to Sir Robert Carbonel, about 1350, son of Sir John, Lord of Baddingham in Suffolk. Sir Robert’s grandson, Sir Richard, is said to have died in foreign parts in 1429; his widow died in 1431, and their son died soon after his mother, s. p.”—Blomfield's Norfolk.

A Norman name: Chabannes, a local name Domesday Book Carbonel.