THE JOCELYNS.

The Jocelyns have a respectable pedigree, but there seems to be no evidence of the descent claimed for them from Charlemagne. The name Jocelyn, Joscelin, or Gosselin, is so common as a Christian name in the days when fixed and hereditary surnames were the exception, that it is quite useless to build anything on its occurrence. The family pedigree puts at the head of the English line a Sir Gilbert Jocelyn, who is said to have accompanied the Conqueror, and to have obtained the manors of Sempringham and Tyringham, in Lincolnshire. It then gives him two sons, Gilbert Jocelyn, of Sempringham, founder of the Gilbertine monastic order in England, and Geoffrey Jocelyn, his brother, from whom the Jocelyn family is descended. But the father of Gilbert Jocelyn the monk was Josceline styled "of Sempringham," in Lincolnshire, and in Domesday Book we find a Gosselin holding manors in that county. There is no evidence that his name was Gilbert, and his son is styled simply "Gilbert of Sempringham."