Lowth thus sensibly remarks upon this obscurity of the name of so distinguished a man:--"If we consider the uncertain state of family-names at the time of the birth of Wykeham, we shall not think it strange that there should be such doubt with regard to the surname of his family; or even if it should appear that he had properly no family-name at all. Surnames were introduced into England by the Normans at the Conquest: 'But certain it is,' says Camden, 'that as the better sort, even from the Conquest, by little and little, took surnames; so they were not settled among the common people fully until about the time of Edward the Second.'" The parents of Wykeham are held to have been poor, but of creditable descent and reputable character. When their son became a dignitary of the church, he employed a seal with heraldic bearings and a quaint motto; but it is believed that these honours were not hereditary. Lowth holds that his relations were of the common people, and adds, "I am even inclined to think that he himself disclaimed all farther pretensions. The celebrated motto which he added to his arms (of which probably he might have received a grant when he began to rise in the world) I imagine was intended by him to intimate something of this kind: _Manners makyth Man_: the true meaning of which, as he designed it, I presume to be, though it has commonly been understood otherwise, that a man's real worth is to be estimated not from the outward and accidental advantages of birth, rank, and fortune, but from the endowments of his mind and his moral qualifications. In this sense it bears a proper relation to his arms, and contains a just apology for those ensigns of his newly acquired dignity. Conscious to himself that his claim to honour is unexceptionable, as founded upon truth and reason, he in a manner makes his appeal to the world; alleging that neither high birth, to which he makes no pretensions, nor high station, upon which he does not value himself, but "'Virtue alone is true nobility.'"