This surname is derived from a nickname. 'Turstinus Mantel occurs in the Domesday of Buckinghamshire as a tenant-in-chief. Probably a sobriquet from the French mantele, cloak-wearer' (Lower). This is quite possible, for we have several familiar surnames still existing taken from the dress of the bearers; v. Chaperon. The variant Mantle is purely imitative.

Robert Mantel, Buckinghamshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Roger Mauntel, Essex, ibid.

John Mauntel, Oxfordshire, ibid.

1506. Tristram Mantell and Helen Duplex: Marriage Lic. (London).

1755. Buried — Elizabeth Basset Mantle: St. Peter, Cornhill.

(English) One who made and sold cloaks or mantles.

(Duchesne gives it Mantel) William de Montellis is mentioned in Normandy about 1198. The name, as Mantel, dates from the Conquest in England. “Turstin Mantel was a baron in Buckinghamshire 1086 (Domesday): where he also held some land under the Earl of Mortaine; and in 1115 King John granted Tottenhoe, in the same county, to Ralph Mantel In 1210, Osbert Mantel is mentioned as enfeoffing Robert de Beauchamp; and another (if not the same, Ralph Mantel, as the deed is undated) granted Tottenhoe to Snelsham Priory; his son William and his brother Geoffrey witnessing the deed.” —Lipscomb's Bucks. No further account of them is to be found in that county. In Northamptonshire, "the Mantells had an interest in Rode as early as the reign of Henry II., where, and at Hartwell, &c., insulated individuals are continually emerging at detached periods; but no regular descent can be verified prior to John Mantell, who in 1446 levied a fine of the manor of Heyford in fee simple. Both Bridges and Vincent confound him with his grandson of the same name who died in 1503. Walter Mantell, the next in succession, was knighted. His son, John Mantell, sallying forth in a nocturnal frolic with his brother-in-law, Lord Dacre to chase the deer in Sir N. Pelham’s park at Laughton in 1541, encounter’d three men, one of whom was mortally wounded in the affray. He and his associates were tried for murder and executed; and their estates escheated to the Crown. To complete the irretrievable ruin of the house, his son Walter Mantell engaged in the Kentish insurrection headed by Sir Thomas Wyatt, and being taken prisoner with him, was sent to the Tower, and soon after executed in Kent, and attainted.” - Baker’s Northants. His uncle and namesake, who had purchased the site of Horton Priory in 1553, suffered in the same cause in the same year at Seven Oaks, and his estate also fell under attainder. It was, however, restored to his son Matthew by Queen Elizabeth, and was still held by his descendants when Hasted’s History of Kent was published in 1790. The name is sometimes given as Mantle. They bore Argent a cross engrailed between four mullets Sable.

In Essex, Robert Mantell held Little Maldon of the Honour of Peverell and founded a Cistercian Monastery at Bilegh in 1180. He was Sheriff of the county for twelve consecutive years—from 1169 to 1181; and Mathew de Montell (probably his son) filled the same office during four years of King John’s reign. John Mantell appears as Sheriff in 1208: Mathew again (joined with him) in 1214; and with Robert Mantell in 1215; Robert alone in 1219. Another Mathew left a widow named Cecily, who held Little Maldon in 1289; but this is the last time their name appears in the history of the county.— Morant.

The Domesday Mantel, and the Mauntell of the H. Probably from Maun-dell, the dale of the Maun, whence the town of Mansfield derived its name.