“Adelolfus de Merc” held in Essex 1086 under Eustace Earl of Boulogne; and his estate of Tollesbury was still held by one of his descendants, Henry de Merk, in 1251. This name, variously given as Merkes, Markes, and Mark, was derived from Marc in Normandy. Geoffrey de Marco and his sons are mentioned by Ordericus Vitalis (591). It is still retained by many places in Essex. There is Le Marck, or Marks Hall, in the parish of Leyton, Mark’s Tay (held under the Mandevilles “from the earliest times”), the parish of Markes Hall, Merks in Dunmow (possessed since the days of the Conqueror), and others. The family was wealthy, numerous, and greatly sub-divided; but the pedigrees furnished by Morant are disjointed and incomplete. Aitropus, or Eutropius, and Simon de Merc occur in the Rotuli Curiæ Regis of 1194-98: and the latter is also entered in the Monasticon as a benefactor of Thornton Abbey. He and his son Ingelram held Marks, in the parish of Great Dunmow, of the King in capite of his Honour of Bologne, and had certainly three, if not more, successors in the male line. Henry de Merc, who held the fee of Shotgrove (including Tollesbury) in the time of Henry III., is also credited with three generations of heirs; the last, another Henry, was living in 1291. Mark’s Tey passed through Alicia (apparently the heiress of Thomas Markes) to William de Tey in the following century. In 1226 Sir Walter de Merc held lands in Blanche Roung of the King in capita and was succeeded by William his son. John de Merc (probably the grandson) received from Ed. I. in 1296 the whole manor of White Roding, thence called Merks, with remainder to his sister, Cicely de Hastings. She held this manor "by the service of keeping two lanar falcons, or hawks, for heron-hawking; and a greyhound trained to make a heron rise, from Michaelmas to the Purification, for the King’s use.”—Morant. Comberton- Marks, in Cambridgeshire, likewise belonged to them. Eustace de Merc, in the time of Cœur de Lion, founded a small monastery in honour of Su Thomas at Roese’s Cross (now Royston) in that county.

We find this family in many other parts of England. Philip Mark was a man of great note, and Sheriff of the counties of Nottingham and Derby during the latter part of King John’s reign, and the first seven or eight years of Henry III. “He held the township of Bulwell by demise of King John, and had the Manor of Melbourne committed to him, and the Farm of Bulwell, to sustain him as long as he had this manor, 12 Hen. III., for life.”—Thoroton's Notts. Peter Markes was joint Sheriff from 1210 to 1216. They bore Per pale Ermine and Azure, a lion rampant counterchanged, in a bordure Sable bezantée; —evidently derived from the coat of the Mercs of Essex: Gules a lion Argent within a bordure indented Or. In Northamptonshire, “Alons de Merke, in the hydarium of Hen. II., was certified to hold nearly two hides in Evenley, part of the Wodhull fee.” - Baker. Henry de Merc was of Kent 1194-98 (Rot. Curiæ Regis). Robert de Merc held lands at Winchester in 1148 (Winton Dom.) Eudo and William Marc witness King Stephen’s grant to Southampton Priory, of which William himself was a benefactor; and either this or another William occurs with Roger Markes in the chartulary of Tichfield Abbey (Mon. Angl.) Two seals of this family are preserved in Camden’s Visitation of Huntingdon in 1613: that of “William de Merc of Chesterton, father of Egidius and Hugh de Merc,” a fesse: and that of Giles de Merc, Party per pale, a cross moline. The last mention I have found of the name is in 1459, when Thomas Merke was Archdeacon of Norwich.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, de Merc.