Weird question

On the Camden Roll, circa 1280, all kinds of people are mentioned and some I really wonder who they were, for instance

King of Griffony

Duc de Venise

mjcar...

The Doge (Dux) of Venice, presumably

Would anyone have an idea who these two were?

Nathaniel Taylor...

I expect the Venetian is the doge, though the arms (de gules od un
chastel d'argent) must be personal arms of that particular doge as it is
not the lion of Saint Mark. The doges in 1280 were Jacopo Contarini and
then Giovanni Dandolo. Reviewing the list of doges in the later 13th c.
(Capelli's Cronologia, p. 346) and looking up their arms might reveal a
match.

'Le rey de Griffonie' is a stumper, though. Arms are 'de azure od un
griffun d'or', and I have no idea who or what a gold griffon on blue
would be for.

Nat Taylor

a genealogist's sketchbook:

my children's 17th-century American immigrant ancestors:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/immigrantsa.htm

Matt Tompkins...

Dear Leo,

in the medieval period Greeks were sometimes called Griffons, so this
must be the King of Greece. Exactly who that might have been in 1280,
I'm not sure, but it may not have been a real person - the arms
ascribed to him in the Roll (Azure, a griffon segreant or) are so
appropriate they look mythical.

Could the Duc de Venise be the Doge of Venice (Venise is French for
Venice, and I have an idea doge was sometimes translated as duke)? The
arms given in the Roll (Gules, a castle argent) haven't ever been the
civic arms of Venice itself, so far as I'm aware, but maybe they were
the family arms of an individual doge.

It might be worth posting the question on rec-heraldry.

Matt Tompkins

Leo van de Pas
Canberra, Australia