CARMENOW, CARMINOW, CARMINOWE, CARMINOU, CARMINNOW, CARMYNEW, CARMYNOW: From Carminow, a manor and barton in the parish of St. Mawgan in Meneage; from car-minow, the little rock. There is a place named Carminnow in Gunwalloe.

CARMINOW: A manor and barton in the parish of St. Mawgan, co. Cornwall. In the XIV. century there was a remarkable controversy in the Court of Chivalry, or Earl Marshal's Court, touching the right of bearing the coat-armorial, "Azure, a bend Or," which was claimed by the three families of Scrope, Grosvenor, and Carminow. In the course of the pleadings, Carminow averred that these had been the ensigns of the Carminows ever since the days of King Arthur I and moreover that one of his ancestors bearing these arms had been ambassador from king Edward the Confessor to either the French king or the duke of Normandy. To this it was replied on the part of Scrope, that in case the ancestor alluded to "lived at Carmenow before the Norman Conquest, those arms could not he appropriated to him by the name of De Carmenow, for it was not the custom of the Britons till about a hundred years after to style themselves from local places, with the Latin preposition or particle De, after the manner of the French; but before mere generally distinguished by the names John-Mac-Richard, Richard-Mac-Thomas, Robert-Ap-Ralph, &c., that is to say, the son of Richard, Thomas, and Ralph, according to their lineal descents." Hals, in D. Gilbert's Cornwall, iii., pp. 130,131. I may add, that Carminow was nonsuited, and compelled to make the addition of a "Label of three points Gules" to his previous coat, "and was so distasted therewith that he chose for the motto of this new bearing arms, a Cornish sentence, which abundantly expressed his dislike thereof: CALA RAG GER DA-id est, "A Straw for Fame !" Ibid.