This surname was a baptismal name 'the son of Absolam' a popular font name in the 13th century. Early records of the name ABSALOM (11th century BC) the third and most favourite son of King David of Israel in the Old Testament. He was a handsome and vain young man, and rebelled against his father, driving him from Jerusalem but in an ensuing battle he was defeated, and as he was fleeing on a mule his hair was caught in the branch of an oak tree, leaving him dangling in the air, and he was despatched by Joab (II Samuel 18). ABSALON (1128-1201) was the Danish prelate and statesman, founder of the city of Copenhagen. He was appointed Bishop of Roskilde in 1158, and elected archbishop of Lund in 1177. As chief minister to Knut VI. he led an exhibition in 1184 that captured Macklenburg and Pomerania. Thomas Apsolon was recorded in the year 1273, in London. Absolon in le Dyche, ibid. William Absolon was documented in County Somerset, during the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). Clemmuell Clark and Elizabeth Absalom were married at St. George's, Hanover Square in London, in the year 1756. During the Middle Ages, when people were unable to read or write, signs were needed for all visual identification. For several centuries city streets in Britain were filled with signs of all kinds, public houses, tradesmen and even private householders found them necessary. This was an age when there were no numbered houses, and an address was a descriptive phrase that made use of a convenient landmark. At this time, coats of arms came into being, for the practical reason that men went into battle heavily armed and were difficult to recognise. It became the custom for them to adorn their helmets with distinctive crests, and to paint their shields with animals and the like. Coats of arms accompanied the development of surnames, becoming hereditary in the same way. The name has many variant spellings which include Absalom and Absolom.