Partner - Name

This name derives from an official ecclesiastical title i.e. "the pardoner", one formerly licensed to sell the Pope's indulgences. These indulgences were bought by wealthy persons wishing to gain remission of the penance attached to certain sins. The following quotation from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" supports this: "With him rode a gentil pardonere, His wallet lay before him in his lappe, Bret-ful of pardon come from Rome al Hote". By the end of the thirteen hundreds, the original spelling, Pardoner, had been replaced by the contracted form, Pardner, which due to dialectual processes became Partner and Partener. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Walter le Pardoner which was dated 1322, in the "The Parliamentary Writs of Cambridgeshire" during the reign of King Edward 11, known as "Edward of Caernafon" 1307 - 1327 Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.