II. LOCAL SURNAMES…

II. LOCAL SURNAMES

In well-nigh every country where personal nomenclature has assumed a sure and settled basis, that is, where a second or surname has become an hereditary possession in the family, we shall find that that portion of it which is of local origin bears by far the largest proportion to the whole. We could well proceed, therefore, to this class apart from any other motive, but when we further reflect that it is this local class which in the first instance became hereditary, we at once perceive an additional claim upon our attention.

I need scarcely say at the outset that, as with all countries so with England, prefixes of various kinds were at first freely used to declare more particularly whence the nominee was sprung. Thus, if he were come from some town or city he would be ‘William of York,’ or ‘John of Bolton,’ this enclitic being familiarly pronounced ‘à,’ as ‘William a York,’ or ‘John a Bolton.’ For instance, it is said in an old poem anent Robin Hood—

It had been better of William a Trent To have been abed with sorrowe;

where it simply means ‘William of Trent.’[105] This, of course, is met in France by ‘de,’ as it was also on English soil during early Norman times. If, on the other hand, the situation only of the abode gave the personality of the nominee, the connecting link was varied according to the humour or caprice of the speaker, or the relative aspect of the site itself. Thus, if we take up the old Hundred Rolls we shall find such entries as ‘John Above-brook,’ or ‘Adelina Above-town,’ or ‘Thomas Behind-water,’ or ‘John Beneath-the-town.’ Or take a more extended instance, such as ‘Lane.’ We find it attached to the personal name in such fashions as the following:—

Cecilia in the Lane. Emma a la Lane. John de la Lane. John de Lane. Mariota en le Lane. Philippa ate Lane. Thomas super Lane.

‘Brook,’ again, by the variety of the prefixes which I find employed, may well be cited as a further example. We have such entries as these:—

Alice de la Broke. Andreas ate Broke. Peter ad le Broke. Matilda ad Broke. Reginald del Broke. Richard apud Broke. Sarra de Broke. Reginald bihunde Broke.

These are extracts of more or less formal entries, but they serve at least to show how it was at first a mere matter of course to put in the enclitics that associated the personal or Christian name with that which we call the surname. Glancing over the instances just quoted, we see that of these definitive terms some are purely Norman, some equally purely Latin, a few are an admixture of Norman and Latin, a common thing in a day when the latter was the language of indenture, and the rest are Saxon, ‘ate’ being the chief one. This ‘atte’ was ‘at the,’ answering to the Norman ‘de la,’ ‘del,’ or ‘du,’ and was familiarly contracted by our forefathers into the other forms of ‘ate’ and ‘att;’ or for the sake of euphony, when a vowel preceded the name proper, extended to ‘atten.’ In our larger and more formal Rolls these seldom occur, owing to their being inscribed all but invariably in the Norman-French or Latin style I have instanced above, but in the smaller abbey records, and those of a more private interest, these Saxon prefixes are common. In the writers of the period they are familiarly used. Thus, in the ‘Coventry Mysteries,’ mention is made of—

Thom Tynker, and Betrys Belle, Peyrs Potter, and Watt at the Well;[106]

while ‘Piers Plowman’ represents Covetousness as saying—

For some tyme I served Symme atte-Style And was his prentice.

It may not be known to all my readers, probably not even to all those most immediately concerned, that this ‘atte’ or ‘att’ has fared with us in a manner similar to that of the Norman ‘du’ and ‘de la.’ It has occasionally been incorporated with the sobriquet of locality, and thus become a recognised part of the surname itself. Take the two names from the two poems I have but just quoted, ‘Watt at the Well’ and ‘Symme atte Style.’ Now we have at this present day but simple ‘Styles’ to represent this latter, while in respect of the former we have not merely ‘Wells,’ but ‘Attwell,’ or ‘Atwell.’ These examples are not solitary ones. Thus, such a name as ‘John atte Wood,’ or ‘Gilbert atte Wode,’ has bequeathed us not merely the familiar ‘Wood,’ but ‘Attwood’ and ‘Atwood’ also. ‘William atte Lea,’ that is, the pasture, can boast a large posterity of ‘Leighs,’ ‘Leghs,’ and ‘Lees;’ but he is well-nigh as commonly represented by our ‘Atlays’ and ‘Attlees.’ And not to become tedious in illustrations, ‘atte-Borough’ is now ‘Attenborough’ or ‘Atterbury;’ ‘atte-Ridge’ has become ‘Attridge,’ ‘atte-Field’ ‘Atfield;’ while such other designations as ‘atte-Town,’ ‘atte-Hill,’ ‘atte-Water,’ ‘atte-Worth,’ ‘atte-Tree,’ or ‘atte-Cliffe,’ are in this nineteenth century of ours registered frequently as mere ‘Atton,’ ‘Athill,’ ‘Atwater,’ ‘Atworth,’ ‘Attree,’ and ‘Atcliffe.’ Sometimes, however, this prefix dropped down into the simple ‘a.’ The notorious Pinder of Wakefield was ‘George a Green’ according to the ballads regarding Robin Hood. ‘Thomas a Becket,’ literally, I doubt not, ‘Thomas atte Becket’—that is, the streamlet—is but another instance from more general history. The name is found in a more Norman dress in the Hundred Rolls, where one ‘Wydo del Beck’t’ is set down. In the same way ‘atte-Gate’ became the jewelled ‘Agate,’ and ‘atte-More’ ‘Amore’ and the sentimental ‘Amor.’ I have said that where the name proper—i.e. the word of locality—began with a vowel the letter ‘n’ was added to ‘atte’ for purposes of euphony. It is interesting to note how this euphonic ‘n’ has still survived when all else of the prefix has lapsed. Thus by a kind of prosthesis our familiar ‘Noakes’ or ‘Nokes’ stands for ‘Atten-Oaks,’ that is, ‘At the Oaks.’ ‘Piers Plowman,’ in another edition from that I have already quoted, makes Covetousness to say—

For sum tyme I served Simme atte Noke, And was his plight prentys, His profit to look.

‘Nash’ is but put for ‘atten-Ash,’ or as some of our Rolls records it, ‘atte-Nash;’ ‘Nalder’ for ‘atten-Alder,’ ‘Nelmes’ for ‘atten-Elms,’ ‘Nall’ for atten-Hall,’ while ‘Oven’ and ‘Orchard’ in the olden registers are found as ‘atte-Novene’ and ‘atte-Norchard’ respectively. That this practice, in a day of an unsettled orthography, was common, is easily judged by the traces that may be detected in our ordinary vocabulary of a similar habit. In the period we are considering ‘ale’ was the vulgar term for an ‘ale-house.’ We still talk of the ‘ale-stake,’ that is, the public-house sign. Thus ‘atten-ale’ got corrupted into ‘nale.’ Chaucer, with many other writers, so uses it. In the ‘Freres Tale’ we are told how the Sompnour—

Maken him gret festes at the nale.

An old poem, too, says—

Robin will Gilot Leden to the nale And sitten there togedres And tellen their tale.

Thus our forefathers used to talk alike of ‘an ouch,’ or ‘a nouch,’ for a jewel or setting of gold. Gower has it—

When thou hast taken any thynge Of love’s gifte, or nouche, or rynge.

Even now, I need scarcely remind my readers, we talk of a ‘newt,’ which is nothing but a contraction of ‘an ewt’ or ‘eft,’ and it is still a question whether ‘nedder,’ provincially used for ‘an adder,’ was not originally contracted in a similar manner. ‘Nale,’ or ‘Nail,’ thus locally derived, still lives in our directories as a surname.[107]

While ‘atte’ has been unquestionably the one chief prefix to these more familiar local terms, it is not the sole one that has left its mark. Our ‘Bywaters’ and ‘Bywoods’ are but the descendants of such mediæval folk as ‘Elias Bi-the-water,’ or ‘Edward By-the-wode,’ and our ‘Byfords,’ ‘Bytheseas,’ and ‘Bygates,’ or ‘Byatts,’ are equally clearly the offspring of some early ancestor who dwelt beside some streamlet shallow, or marine greensward, or woodland hatchway.

In this pursuit after individuality, however, this was not the only method adopted. Another class of names arose from the somewhat contrary practice of appending to the place-word a termination equally significative of residence. This suffix was of two kinds, one ending in ‘er,’ the other in ‘man.’ Thus if the rustic householder dwelt in the meadows, he became known among his acquaintance as ‘Robert the Fielder,’ or ‘Filder;’ if under the greenwood shade, ‘Woodyer,’ or ‘Woodyear,’ or ‘Woodman’—relics of the old ‘le Wodere’ and ‘le Wodeman;’ if by the precincts of the sanctuary, ‘Churcher’ or ‘Churchman’ in the south of England, or ‘Kirker’ or ‘Kirkman’ in the north; if by some priory, ‘Templer’ or ‘Templeman;’ if by the village cross, ‘Crosser,’ or ‘Crossman,’ or ‘Croucher,’ or ‘Crouchman;’ if by the bridge, ‘Bridger’ or ‘Bridgman;’ if by the brook, ‘Brooker,’ or ‘Brookman,’ or ‘Becker,’ or ‘Beckman;’ if by the well, the immortal ‘Weller,’ or ‘Welman,’ or ‘Crossweller,’ if, as was often the case, it lay beneath the roadside crucifix; if by some particular tree, ‘Beecher,’ once written ‘le Beechar,’ or ‘Asher,’ or ‘Hollier,’ or ‘Holleyman,’ or ‘Oker,’ and so on.

A certain number of names of the class we are now dwelling upon have arisen from a somewhat peculiar colloquial use of the term ‘end’ in vogue with our Saxon forefathers. The method of its employment is still common in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The poorer classes still speak of a neighbour as dwelling ‘at the street end;’ they never by any chance use the fuller phrase ‘the end of the street.’ Chaucer uses it as a familiar mode of expression. The Friar, in the preface to his story, says slightingly—

A Sompnour is a rener up and doun With mandments for fornication, And is beaten at every tounes ende.

In the ‘Persones Prologue,’ too, the same poet says—

Therewith the moons exaltation In mene Libra, alway gan ascende As we were entring at the thorpes ende.

How colloquial it must have been in his day we may judge from the following list of names I have been enabled to pick up from various records, and which I could have enlarged had I so chosen:—

John ate Bruge-ende. Walter atte Townshende. John de Poundesende. Margaret ate Laneande. William atte Streteshend. John atte Burende. Adam de Wodeshende. Martin de Clyveshende. John de la Wykhend. William de Overende. John de Dichende. Thomas atte Greaveshende.

Besides these we have such a Latinized form for ‘Townsend,’ or ‘Townshend,’ as ‘Ad finem villæ,’ or ‘End’ itself without further particularity, in such a sobriquet as ‘William atte-Nende.’[108] The several points of the compass, too, are marked in ‘Northende,’ ‘Eastende,’ and ‘Westende,’ the latter having become stereotyped in the fashionable mouth as the quarter in which the more opulent portion of the town reside, whether its aspect be towards the setting sun or the reverse—but an exaggeration of this kind is a mere trifle where fashion is concerned.

But these Saxon compounded names, numerous as they are, are but few in comparison with the simple locative itself, without prefix, without desinence, ‘Geoffrey atte Style,’ ‘Roger atte Lane,’ ‘Walter atte Water,’ ‘Thomas atte Brooke;’ or in the more Norman fashion of many of our rolls, ‘John de la Ford,’ ‘Robert del Holme,’ ‘Richard de la Field,’ ‘Alice de la Strete:’ all these might linger for awhile, but in the end, as we might foresee, as well in the mouths of men as later on in the pages of our registers, they became simple ‘Geoffrey Styles’ and ‘Roger Lane,’ ‘Walter Waters’ and ‘Thomas Brookes,’ ‘John Ford’ and ‘Robert Holmes,’ ‘Alice Street’ and ‘Richard Field.’ Here, then, is an endless source of surnames to our hands. Here is the spring from which have issued those local sobriquets which preponderate so largely over those of every other class. To analyse all these were impossible, and the task of selection is little less difficult. But we may give the preference to such leading provincialisms as are embodied in our personal nomenclature, or to such terms as by their existence there betoken that, though not now, yet they did then occupy a place in the vocabulary of every-day converse. For it is wonderful how numberless are the local words, now obsolete saving for our registers, which were used in ordinary talk not more than five hundred years ago. That many of them have been thus rescued from oblivion by our hereditary nomenclature is due no doubt to the fact that the period of the formation of the latter is that also during which our tongue was settling down into that composite form of Saxon and Norman in which we now have it, and which in spite of losses in consequence, in spite of here and there a noble word crushed out, has given our English language its pliancy and suppleness, its strengths and shades.

We have mentioned ‘de la Woode’ and Attewoode.’ ‘De la Hirst’ is exactly similar—its compounds equally numerous. The pasture beside it is ‘Hursley’—if filberts abound it is ‘Hazlehurst;’ if ashes, ‘Ashurst;’ if lindens or linds, ‘Lyndhurst;’ if elms, ‘Elmhurst.’ If hawks frequented it we find it styled ‘Hawkhurst;’ if goats, ‘Goathirst;’ if badgers or brocks, ‘Brocklehurst;’ if deer, ‘Dewhurst’ (spelt Duerhurst, 1375). The ‘holt’ was less in size, being merely a coppice or small thicket. Chaucer speaks of ‘holtes and hayes.’ ‘De la Holt’ is of frequent occurrence in our early rolls. Our ‘Cockshots’ are but the ‘cocksholt,’ the liquid letter being elided as in ‘Aldershot,’ ‘Oakshot,’[109] and ‘Bagshot,’ or badgers’ holt. A ‘shaw’ or ‘schaw’ was a small woody shade or covert. An old manuscript says:—

In somer when the shawes be sheyne, And leves be large and long, It is fulle mery in feyre foreste To here the foulys song.

As a shelter for game and the wilder animals, it is found in such compounds as ‘Bagshaw,’ the badger being evidently common; ‘Hindshaw,’ ‘Ramshaw,’ ‘Hogshaw,’[110] ‘Cockshaw,’ ‘Henshaw,’ and ‘Earnshaw.’ The occurrence of such names as ‘Shallcross’ and ‘Shawcross,’ ‘Henshall’ and ‘Henshaw,’ and ‘Kersall’ and ‘Kershaw,’ would lead us to imagine that this word too has been somewhat corrupted. Other descriptive compounds are found in ‘Birkenshaw,’ or ‘Denshaw,’ or ‘Bradshaw,’ or ‘Langshaw,’ or ‘Openshaw.’ As for ‘Shaw’ simple, every county in England has it locally, and every directory surnominally. Such a name as ‘Richard de la Frith’ or ‘George ate Frith’ carries us at once to the woodland copses that underlay our steeper mountain-sides—they represented the wider and more wooded valleys in fact. We find the term lingering locally in such a name as ‘Chapel-en-le-frith’ in the Peak of Derbyshire. The usual alliterative expression of early days was ‘by frith and fell.’ We have it varied in an old poem of the fourteenth century:—

The Duke of Braband first of all Swore, for thing that might befall, That he should both day and night Help Sir Edward in his right, In town, in field, in frith and fen.

Our ‘Friths’ are by no means in danger of obsoletism, to judge by our directories—and they are a pleasant memorial of a term which was once in familiar use as expressive of some of the most picturesque portions of English scenery. Such a name as ‘De la Dene’ or ‘Atte Den,’ of frequent occurrence formerly, and as ‘Dean’ or ‘Den’ equally familiar now, is worthy of particularity. A den was a sunken and wooded vale, where cattle might find alike covert and pasture. Thus it is that we are accustomed to speak of a den in connexion with animal life, in such phrases as a ‘den of lions’ or a ‘den of thieves.’ See how early this notion sprang. We have a remembrance of the brock in ‘Brogden,’ the wolf in ‘Wolfenden,’ the fox in ‘Foxden,’ the ram in ‘Ramsden,’ the hare in ‘Harden,’ and the deer in ‘Dearden,’[111] ‘Buckden’ or ‘Bugden,’ ‘Rayden’ and ‘Roden,’ or ‘Rowden.’ The more domesticated animals abide with us in ‘Horsden,’ ‘Oxenden,’ and ‘Cowden,’ ‘Lambden,’ or ‘Lamden,’ ‘Borden,’ and ‘Sugden,’ or ‘Sowden;’ ‘Swinden,’ ‘Eversden,’ and ‘Ogden,’ at first written ‘de Hogdene.’ With regard especially to this latter class it is that our ‘Court of Dens’ arose, which till late years settled all disputes relative to forest pannage. The dweller therein, engaged probably in the tendance of such cattle as I have mentioned last, was the ‘Denyer’ or ‘Denman,’ both surnames still living in our midst. While the den was given up mainly to swine, the ley[112] afforded shelter to all manner of domestic livestock, not to mention, however, some few of the wilder quarry. The equine species has given to us ‘Horsley;’ the bovine, ‘Cowley,’ ‘Kinley,’ and ‘Oxlee’ or ‘Oxley;’ the deer, ‘Hartley,’ ‘Rowley,’ ‘Buckley,’ and ‘Hindley;’ the fox, ‘Foxley;’[113] the hare, ‘Harley,’ and even the sheep, though generally driven to the scantier pastures of the rocks and steeps, has left us in ‘Shipley’ a trace of its footprint in the deeper and more sheltered glades. Characteristic of the trees which enclosed it, we get ‘Ashley,’ ‘Elmsley,’ ‘Oakley,’ ‘Lindley,’ or ‘Berkeley.’ Of the name simple we have endless forms; those of ‘Lee,’ ‘Legh,’ ‘Lea,’ ‘Lees,’ ‘Laye,’ and ‘Leigh’[114] being the most familiar. In the old rolls their ancestors figure in an equal variety of dresses, for we may at once light upon such names as ‘Emma de la Leye,’ or ‘Richard de la Legh,’ or ‘Robert de la Lee,’ or ‘William de la Lea,’ or ‘Petronilla de la Le.’ Our ‘Atlays’ and ‘Atlees,’ as I have already said, are but the more Saxon ‘Atte Lee.’

In some of these surnames we can trace the early cuttings amongst the thickly wooded districts where the larger wealds were situated. Our ‘Royds,’ or ‘Rodds,’ or ‘Rodes,’ all hail from some spot ridded of waste wood. Compounds may be found in our ‘Huntroyds,’ that is, the clearing for the chase; ‘Holroyds,’ that is, the holly-clearing; and ‘Acroyds,’ that is, the oak-clearing, the term ‘acorn,’ that is, ‘oak-corn,’ and such local names as ‘Acton’ or ‘Acland,’ reminding us of this the older spelling; ‘Ormerod,’ again, is but Ormes-clearing—Orme being, as we have already shown, a common Saxon personal name. Our ‘Greaves’ and ‘Graves’ and ‘Groves,’ descendants of the ‘de la Groves’ and ‘Atte Groves’ of early rolls, not to mention the more personal ‘Grover’ and ‘Graver,’ convey the same idea. A ‘Greave’ was a woodland avenue, graved or cut out of the forest. Fairfax speaks of the—

Wind in holts and shady greaves.

’Tis true we only ‘grave’ in stone now, but it was not always so. Thus in the ‘Legend of Good Women’ mention is made of—

A little herber that I have That benched was on turves fresh ygrave.

We still call the last resting-place of the dead in our churchyards a grave, though dug from the soil. I have already mentioned ‘de la Graveshend’ occurring as a surname. Our ‘Hargreaves’ hail from the grove where the hares are plentiful; our ‘Congreves’ representing the same in the coney. Our ‘Greeves’ we shall have occasion in another chapter to show belong to another and more occupative class of surnames. Our ‘Thwaites,’ too, belong to this category. Locally the term is confined to Cumberland and the north, where the Norwegians left it. It is exactly equivalent to ‘field,’ a felled place, or woodland clearing. The compounds formed from it are too numerous to wade through. Amongst others, however, we have, as denotive of the substances ridded, ‘Thornthwaite,’ ‘Limethwaite,’ ‘Rownthwaite,’ and ‘Hawthornthwaite;’ of peculiarity in position or shape, ‘Brathwaite’ (broad), and ‘Micklethwaite;’ of contents, ‘Thistlethwaite,’ ‘Cornthwaite,’ and ‘Crossthwaite.’ The very dress of the majority of these compounds testifies to the northern origin of the root-word.

Our ‘Slade’ represents the ‘de la Slades’ of the Hundred Rolls. A slade was a small strip of green plain within a woodland. One of the numberless rhymes concerning Robin Hood says—

It had been better of William a Trent To have been abed with sorrowe, Than to be that day in the greenwood slade To meet with Little John’s arrowe.

Its nature is still more characterised in ‘Robert de Greneslade,’ that is, the green-slade; ‘William de la Morslade,’ the moorland-slade; ‘Richard de Wytslade,’ the white-slade; ‘Michael de Ocslade,’ the oak-slade, and ‘William de Waldeslade,’[115] the forest-slade (weald); ‘Sladen,’ that is, slade-den, implies a woodland hollow. As a local term there is a little difference betwixt it and ‘launde,’ only the latter has no suspicion of indenture about it. A launde was a pretty and rich piece of grassy sward in the heart of a forest, what we should now call an open wood, in fact. Thus it is we term the space in our gardens within the surrounding shrubberies lawns. Chaucer says of Theseus on hunting bent—

To the launde he rideth him ful right There was the hart wont to have his flight.

In the ‘Morte Arthur,’ too, we are told of hunting—

At the hartes in these hye laundes.

This is the source of more surnames than we might imagine. Hence are sprung our ‘Launds,’ ‘Lands,’ ‘Lowndes,’ ‘Landers,’ in many cases, and our obsolete ‘Landmans.’ The forms, as at first met with, are equally varied. We have ‘atte-Lond,’ ‘de la Laund,’ and ‘de la Lande,’ while the origin of our ‘Lunds’ shows itself in ‘de la Lund.’ ‘De la Holme’ still flourishes in our ‘Holmes,’ while the more personal form is found in our ‘Holmers’ and ‘Holmans.’ An holm was a flat meadow-land lying within the windings of some valley stream. Our ‘Platts,’ found in such an entry as ‘Robert del Plat,’ are similarly sprung, but in the ‘plat’ there was less thought of general surroundings. As an adjective it was in common use formerly. For instance, in the ‘Romaunt of the Rose,’ when the God of Love had shot his arrow, it is said—

When I was hurte thus in stound I fell down plat unto the ground.

Our ‘Knowles,’ ‘Knowlers,’ and ‘Knowlmans’ carry us to the gently rising slopes in the woods, grassy and free of timber, the old form of the first being ‘de la Cnolle’ or ‘atte Knolle.’ Our ‘Lynches,’ once written ‘de Linches,’ I should surmise, are but a dress of the still familiar link across our northern border—the flatland running by the river and sea-coast, while our ‘Kays’ (when not the old British ‘Kay’) represent the more artificial ‘quay,’ reminding us of the knitting together of beam and stone. It is but the same word as we apply to locks, the idea of both being that of securing or fastening.

Though it is to the more open plains and woodlands we must look for the majority of our place-names, nevertheless, looking up our steeps and into the fissures of the hills, we may see that every feature in the landscape has its memorial in our nomenclature. ‘De la Hill’ needs no remark. ‘De la Helle’ and ‘atte Helle’ are somewhat less pleasant to look upon, but they are only another form of the same. ‘De la Hulle,’ again, is but a third setting of the same. Gower says—

Upon the hulles hyhe Of Othrin and Olympe also, And eke of three hulles mo She fond and gadreth herbes sweet.

‘Mountain’ is the ‘de la Montaigne’ of the twelfth century, but of course of Norman introduction. This sobriquet reminds us of the story told of a certain Dr. Mountain, chaplain to Charles II., who, when the king asked him if he could recommend him a suitable man for a vacant bishopric, is reported to have answered, ‘Sire, if you had but the faith of a grain of mustard seed, the matter could be settled at once.’ ‘How?’ inquired the astonished monarch. ‘Why, my liege, you could then say unto this mountain (smiting his own breast), “be thou removed to that see,” and it should be done.’[116] Our ‘Cloughs’ represent the narrow fissures betwixt the hills. From the same root we owe our ‘Clives’ (the ‘de la Clive’ of the Hundred Rolls), ‘Cliffes,’ ‘Cleves,’ and ‘Clowes,’ not to mention our endless ‘Cliffords,’ ‘Cliftons,’ ‘Clifdens,’ ‘Cliveleys,’ ‘Clevelands,’ ‘Tunnicliffes,’ ‘Sutcliffes,’ ‘Nethercliffes,’ ‘Topliffs,’ ‘Ratcliffes,’ or ‘Redcliffes,’ ‘Faircloughs,’ and ‘Stonecloughs.’ Any prominence of rock or earth was a ‘cop,’ or ‘cope,’ from the Saxon ‘cop,’ a head.[117] Chaucer talks of the ‘cop of the nose.’ In Wicklyffe’s version of Luke iv. 29, it says, ‘And thei risen up and droven him out withouten the cytee, and ledden him to the coppe of the hill on which their cytee was bilded to cast him down.’ We still talk of a coping-stone. Hence, from its local use, we have derived our ‘Copes’ and ‘Copps,’ ‘Copleys’ and ‘Copelands,’ and ‘Copestakes.’ From ‘cob,’ which is but another form of the same word, we get our ‘Cobbs,’ Cobhams,’ ‘Cobwells,’ ‘Cobdens,’ and ‘Cobleys.’ Thus, to consult the Parliamentary Writs alone, we find such entries as ‘Robert de Cobbe,’ ‘Reginald de Cobeham,’ ‘John de Cobwell,’ or ‘Godfrey de Coppden.’ As a cant term for a rich or prominent man ‘cob’ is found in many of our later writers, and ‘cobby’ more early implied a headstrong nature. Another term in use for a local prominence was ‘ness,’ or ‘naze.’ ‘Roger atte Ness’ occurs in the thirteenth century; and ‘Longness’ and ‘Thickness’ and ‘Redness’ are but compounds, unless, as is quite possible, they be from the same root in its more personal relationship to the human face, the word nose being familiarly so pronounced at this time. Our ‘Downs’ and ‘Dunns,’ when not sprung from ‘le Dun,’ are but descendants of the old ‘de la Dune,’ of the hilly slopes; our ‘Combs’ and ‘Combes’ representing the ‘de la Cumbe’ of the ridgy hollows, or ‘cup-shaped depressions’ of the higher hillsides, as Mr. Taylor happily expresses it. It is thus we get our terms ‘honeycomb,’ ‘cockscomb,’ ‘haircomb,’ &c. Few terms have connected themselves so much as this with the local nomenclature of our land, and few have made themselves so conspicuous in our directories. The writer I have just mentioned quotes a Cumberland poet, who says—

There’s Cumwhitton, Cumwhinton, Cumranton, Cumrangan, Cumrew, and Cumcatch, And mony mair Cums i’ the County, But nin wi’ Cumdivock can match.

Of those compounds which have become surnames we cannot possibly recite all, but among the more common are ‘Thorncombe’ and ‘Broadcombe,’ ‘Newcombe’ and ‘Morcombe,’ ‘Lipscombe’ and ‘Woolcombe,’ ‘Withecombe’ and ‘Buddicom,’ and ‘Slocombe.’ We have already mentioned ‘Amore.’ The simple ‘More,’ or ‘Moore,’ is very familiar; ‘atte Mor,’ or ‘de la More,’ being the older forms. This has ever been a favourite name for punning rhymes. In the ‘Book of Days,’ several plays of this kind have been preserved. When Dr. Manners Sutton[118] succeeded Dr. Moore in the Archiepiscopal chair of Canterbury, the following lines were written:—

What say you?—the archbishop’s dead? A loss, indeed! Oh, on his head May Heaven its blessings pour! But if with such a heart and mind, In Manners we his equal find, Why should we wish for More?

When Sir Thomas More was Chancellor, it is said, his great attention to his duties caused all litigation to come to an end in the Court of Chancery. The following epigram bearing upon this fact was written:—

When More some years had Chancellor been, No more suits did remain; The same shall never more be seen Till More be there again.

Our ‘Heaths’ explain themselves, but our ‘Heths,’ though the same, and from the first found as ‘atte Heth,’ are not so transparent. Some might be tempted to set them down in a more Israelitish category as descendants of the ‘children of Heth,’ but such is not the case. Somewhat similar to ‘Cope,’ mentioned above, was ‘Knop’ or ‘Knap’—a summit.[119] Any protuberance, whatever it might be, was with our old writers a ‘knop.’[120] Rose-buds and buttons alike, with Chaucer, are ‘knops’:—

Among the knops I chose one So fair, that of the remnant none Ne praise I halfe so wel as it.

North in his Plutarch says, ‘And both these rivers turning in one, carrying a swift streame, doe make the knappe of the said hill very strong of its situation to lodge a camp upon.’ To our hilltops, then, it is we owe our ‘Knaps,’ ‘Knappers,’ ‘Knapmans,’ ‘Knopps,’ ‘Knopes,’ ‘Knabwells,’ and ‘Knaptons.’ Our ‘Howes’ represent the smaller hills, while still less prominent would be the abodes of our early ‘Lawes,’[121] and ‘Lowes,’ or ‘de la Lawe’ and ‘de la Lowe,’ as they are found in the Hundred Rolls. Our ‘Shores’ need no explanation, but our ‘Overs’ are less known. An old poem, quoted by Mr. Halliwell, says:—

She come out of Sexlonde, And rived here at Dovere, That stondes upon the sees overe.

It seems to have been used generally to denote the flat-lands that lay about the sea-coast or rivers generally—what we should call in Scotland the links. I have already mentioned our ‘Overends’ as similar to our ‘Townsends;’ ‘Overman’ doubtless is but the more personal form of the same.[122]

Coming gradually to more definite traces of human habitation, we may mention some of our tree names. Of several, such as ‘Nash,’ and ‘Nalder,’ and ‘Nokes,’ we have already spoken. Such a name as ‘Henry atte Beeche,’ or ‘Walter de la Lind,’ or ‘Richard atte Ok,’ now found as simple ‘Beech,’ and ‘Lind,’ and ‘Oake,’ reminds us that we are not without further obligations to the tree world. Settling by or under the shade of some gigantic elm or oak, a sobriquet of this kind would be perfectly natural. As our ‘Lyndhursts’ and ‘Lindleys’ prove, ‘lind’ was once familiarly used for our now fuller ‘linden.’ Piers Plowman says:—

Blisse of the briddes Broughte me aslepe, And under a lynde Upon a launde Leaned I.

Were the Malvern dreamer describing poetically the birth and the origin of the future Swedish nightingale who four hundred years afterwards was to entrance the world with her song, he could not have been more happy in his expression. Our ‘Ashes’ and ‘Birches,’ once ‘de la Byrche,’ need little remark, but ‘Birks,’ the harder form of the latter, is not so familiar, though it is still preserved in such names as ‘Birkenhead,’ or ‘Birkenshaw,’ or ‘Berkeley.’ A small group of trees would be equally perspicuous. Thus have arisen our ‘Twelvetrees,’ and ‘Fiveashes,’ and ‘Snooks,’ a mere corruption of the Kentish ‘Sevenoaks.’ Mr. Lower mentions ‘Quatrefages,’ that is, ‘four beeches,’ as a corresponding instance in French nomenclature.[123]

A common object in the country lane or by-path would be the gate or hatch that ran across the road to confine the deer. The old provincialism for this was ‘yate.’ We are told of Griselda in the ‘Clerkes Tale’ that—

With glad chere to the yate

she is gone

To grete the markisesse;

and Piers Plowman says our Lord came in through

Both dore and yates To Peter and to these apostles.[124]

Our ‘Yates,’ written once ‘Atte Yate,’ by their numbers can bear testimony to the familiarity with which this expression was once used. ‘Byatt’ I have just shown to be the same as ‘Bygate,’ and ‘Woodyat’ is but equivalent to ‘Woodgate.’ Other compounds are found in the old registers. In the ‘Placitorum’ of the thirteenth century, for instance, we light upon a ‘Christiana atte Chircheyate,’ and a ‘John atte Foldyate;’ while in the Hundred Rolls of the same period we find a ‘Walter atte Lideyate,’ now familiarly known to us as ‘Lidgate.’ Our ‘Hatchs,’ once enrolled as ‘de la Hache,’ like our before-mentioned ‘Hatchers’ and ‘Hatchmans,’ represented the simple bar that ran athwart the woodland pathway. We still call the upper-deck with its crossbars the hatches, and a weir is yet with the country folk a hatch. Chaucer speaks of—

Lurking in hernes and in lanes blinde.

Any nook or corner of land was with our forefathers a ‘hearne,’ and as ‘en le Herne’ or ‘atte Hurne’ the surname is frequently found in the thirteenth century.[125] ‘De la Corner’ is, of course, but a synonymous term. A passage betwixt two houses, or a narrow defile between two hillsides, was a ‘gore,’ akin, we may safely say, to ‘gorge.’ Our ‘Gores,’ as descendants of the old ‘de la Gore,’ are thus explained. ‘De la Goreway,’ which once existed, is now, I believe, obsolete. One of the most fertile roots of nomenclature was the simple roadside ‘cross’ or ‘crouch,’ the latter old English form still lingering in our ‘crutched’ or ‘crouched Friars.’ Langland describes a pilgrim as having ‘many a crouche on his cloke;’ i.e. many a mark of the cross embroidered thereon. A dweller by one of these wayside crucifixes would easily get the sobriquet therefrom, and thus we find ‘atte Crouch’ to be of early occurrence. Our ‘Crouchmans’ and ‘Crouchers’ I have already mentioned. A ‘Richard Crocheman’ is found in the Hundred Rolls, and a ‘William Croucheman’ in another entry of the same period. As for the simpler ‘Cross,’ once written ‘atte Cross,’ it is to be met with everywhere. ‘Crosier’ and ‘Crozier’ I shall, in my next chapter, show to be official rather than local; so we may pass them by for the present. The more Saxon ‘Rood’ or ‘Rudd’ is not without its representatives. ‘Margery atte Rudde’ is found in the ‘Placitorum,’ and our ‘Rudders’ and ‘Ruddimans,’ I doubt not, stand for the more directly personal form. Talking of crosses, we may mention, in passing, our ‘Bellhouses,’ not unfrequently found as ‘atte Belhus’ or ‘de la Belhuse.’ The founder of this name dwelt in the small domicile attached to the monastic pile, and, no doubt, had for his care the striking of the innumerable calls to the supply of either the bodily or spiritual wants of those within. Our ‘Bellows,’ I believe, are but a modification of this. The last syllable has undergone a similar change in several other instances. Thus the form ‘del Hellus’ was but ‘Hill-house,’ ‘Woodus’ is but the old ‘de la Wodehouse,’ ‘Stannus’ but ‘Stanehouse’ or ‘Stonehouse,’ ‘Malthus’ but ‘Malthouse,’ and ‘Bacchus’ is found originally as ‘del Bakehouse.’[126] The old ‘Atte Grene,’ a name familiar enough without the prefix, may be set beside our ‘Plastows,’ relics of the ‘Atte Pleistowe’ or ‘de la Pleystowe’ of the period we are considering. The ‘play-stowe’ (that is, ‘playground’) seems to have been the general term in olden days for the open piece of greensward near the centre of the village where the may-pole stood, and where all the sports at holiday times and wake tides were carried on.[127] Our ‘Meads’ or ‘Meddes’ hail from the ‘meadow,’ or ‘mead.’ ‘Ate Med’ is the early form.[128]

A ‘croft’ was an enclosed field for pasture. Besides ‘Croft’ it has given us ‘Meadowcroft,’ ‘Ryecroft,’ ‘Bancroft’ (that is, bean-croft), ‘Berecroft’ (that is, barley-croft), and ‘Haycraft’ (that is, hedged-croft). It seems, however, to have been freely used, also, in the sense of garth or yard, the enclosure in which, or by which, the house stood. Thus, in the ‘Townley Mysteries,’ Satan is represented as calling to the depraved and vile, and saying—

Come to my crofte alle ye.

With the humour of the period, which was ever largely intermingled in even the most sacred themes, one of the characters, acting as a demon, replies—

Souls come so thyk now late unto hell As ever Our porter at hell-gate Is holden so strait, Up early and downe late, He rests never.

There is little distinction to be drawn between ‘garth’ and ‘yard’ in the North of England, and in reality there ought to be none. Such names, however, as ‘Nicholas de Apelyerd,’ or ‘Robert del Apelgarth,’ or ‘Richard atte Orcheyerd,’ the descendants of whom are still in our midst, bespeak a former familiarity of usage which we cannot find now. We have just mentioned ‘Haycraft.’ This reminds us of our ‘Hayes.’ Chaucer, in his ‘Troilus,’ says—

But right so as these holtes and these hayes, That han in winter dead been and dry, Revesten them in grene when that May is, When every lusty beast listeth to pley.

A ‘hay’ was nothing but a ‘hedge.’ In the Hundred Rolls we find such names occurring as ‘Margery de la Haye’ or ‘Roger de la Hagh,’ or in a compounded form ‘Richard de la Woodhaye,’ or ‘Robert de Brodheye.’ Of the simple root the forms most common now are ‘Hay,’ ‘Hayes,’ ‘Haighs,’ ‘Haigs,’ and ‘Hawes.’ The composite forms are endless. ‘Roundhay’ explains itself. ‘Lyndsay’ I find spelt at this period as ‘Lyndshay,’ so that it is not the islet whereon the lind or linden grows, but the hedge of these shrubs. Besides these we have ‘Haywood’ or ‘Heywood,’ ‘Hayland’ and ‘Hayley.’ From the form ‘hawe,’ mentioned above, we have our ‘Hawleys,’ ‘Haworths,’ and ‘Hawtons,’ or ‘Haughtons,’ and probably the longest name in the directory, that of ‘Featherstonehaugh.’ We still talk of the haw-thorn and haw-haw. Chaucer uses the term for a farmyard or garth—

And eke there was a polkat in his hawe That, as he sayd, his capons had yslawe.

This at once explains such a name as ‘Peter in le Hawe’ found in the Hundred Rolls. But Chaucer has a prettier use of it than this, a use still abiding in our ‘Churchays,’ relics of the mediæval ‘de Chirchehay.’ He speaks twice of the ‘Churchhawe,’ or graveyard. How pretty it is! almost as pretty as its Saxon synonym ‘Godsacre,’ only that is more endeared to us, inasmuch as since the acre always denoted the sowed land (Latin ‘ager’), so it whispers to us hopefully of the great harvest-tide to come when the seed thus sown in corruption shall be raised an incorruptible body. Our ‘Goodacres’ are doubtless thus derived—and with such names as ‘Acreman’ or ‘Akerman,’ ‘Oldacre’ or ‘Oddiker,’ ‘Longacre’ and ‘Whittaker’ (or ‘Whytacre’ or ‘Witacre,’ as I find it in the thirteenth century), help to remind us how in early days an acre denoted less a fixed measure of land than soil itself that lay under the plough. But this by the way. I have just mentioned ‘Hayworth.’ A name like ‘William de la Worth’ (H.R.) represented our ‘Worths’ in the thirteenth century. Properly speaking, any sufficiently warded place—it had come to denote a small farmstead at the time the surname arose. ‘Charlesworth’ is the ‘churl’s worth,’ the familiar metamorphosis of this name being identical with that of the astronomic ‘Charles Wain,’ and with such place-names as ‘Charle-wood,’ ‘Charlton,’ ‘Carlton,’ and ‘Charley.’ Our various ‘Unsworths,’ ‘Ainsworths,’ ‘Whitworths,’ ‘Langworthys,’ ‘Kenworthys,’ ‘Wortleys,’ and others of this class are familiar to us all. Surnames like ‘Roger de la Grange,’ or ‘Geoffrey de la Grange,’ or ‘John le Granger,’[129] remind us that grange also was commonly used at this time for a farmstead, it being in reality nothing more than our granary.[130] Piers Plowman portrays the good Samaritan thus—

His wounds he washed, Enbawmed hym, and bound his head, And ledde hym forth on ‘Lyard’ To ‘lex Christi,’ a graunge Wel sixe mile or sevene Beside the newe market.

Our ‘Barnes,’ I need not say, are of similar origin. The Celtic ‘booth,’ a frail tenement of ‘boughs,’ whose temporary character our Biblical account of the Israelitish wanderings so well helps to preserve, has given birth to our ‘Booths’ and ‘Boothmans,’ once written ‘de la Bothe’ and ‘Botheman.’ They may possibly have kept the stall at the fair or market. Comparisons we know are ever odious, but set beside the more Saxon ‘Steads’ and ‘Steadmans’ the former inevitably suffer. The very names of these latter betray to us the well-nigh best characteristics of the race whence they are sprung. To be steady and _sted_fast are its best and most inherent qualities—qualities which, added to the dash and spirit of the Norman, have given the position England to-day occupies among the nations of the world. Our ‘Bowers’ and ‘Bowermans,’ when not occupied in the bowyer’s or bower’s craft, represent the earlier ‘de la Bore’ or ‘atte Bore,’ and have taken their origin from the old ‘bower,’ the rustics’ abode. It is the same word whence has sprung our bucolic ‘boor.’ An old English term for a house or mansion was ‘bold,’ that which was built. The old ‘De la Bolde,’ therefore, will in many cases be the origination of our ‘Bolds.’ Our ‘Halls’ explain themselves, but the older form of ‘Hale’ (once ‘atte Hale’ or ‘de la Hale’) is not so easily traceable. ‘De la Sale,’ sometimes also found as ‘de la Saule,’ was the Norman synonym of the same.

Soon they sembled in sale, Both kynge and cardinale,

says an old writer. ‘Sale’ and ‘Saul’ are still extant. Names still more curious than these are those taken, not from the residence itself, but from particular rooms in such residence. They are doubtless the result of the feudal system, which, with its formal list of house officers and attendants, required the presence of at least one in each separate chamber. Hence the Norman-introduced parlour, that is, the speaking or reception room, gave us ‘Henry del Parlour,’ or ‘Richard ate Parlour;’ the kitchen, ‘Geoffrey atte Kitchen,’ or ‘Richard del Kechen;’ or the pantry ‘John de la Panetrie,’ or ‘Henry de la Panetrie.’ But I shall have occasion to speak more fully of this by-and-by, so I will say no more here.

There is a pretty word which has been restored from an undeserved oblivion within the last few years by Mr. Tennyson, in his ‘Brook,’ as an idyll perhaps the distinctly finest thing of its kind in the English language. The word referred to is ‘thorpe,’ a village, pronounced ‘throp’ or ‘trop’ by our forefathers. Thus in the ‘Clerkes Tale’ we are told—

Nought far fro this palace honorable, There stood a thorpe of sight delitable, In which the poor folk of that village Hadden their bestes and their harborage;

while in the ‘Assembly of Fowls’ mention is prettily made of

The tame ruddocke and the coward kite, The cock, that horiloge is of thorpes lite.

This diversity is well exemplified in our nomenclature. Thus the term in its simple form is found in such entries as ‘Adam de Thorpe,’ or ‘Simon de Throp,’ or ‘Ralph de Trop,’ all of which are to be met with in the one same register; while compounded with other words, we are all familiar with such surnames as ‘Gawthorpe,’ ‘Winthrop,’ ‘Hartrop,’ ‘Denthorp,’ ‘Buckthorp,’ ‘Fridaythorp,’ ‘Conythorp,’ ‘Calthrop,’ or ‘Westropp.’ Our ‘Thrupps,’ too, we must not forget as but another corrupted form of the same root.

There are two words whose sense has become so enlarged and whose importance among English local terms has become so great that we cannot but give them a place by themselves. They are those of ‘town’ and ‘borough.’ Such registered names as ‘William de la Towne’ or ‘Ralph de la Tune,’ now found as ‘Town’ and ‘Tune,’ represent the former in its primeval sense. The term is still used in Scotland, as it was used here some generations ago, to denote a farm and all its surrounding enclosures. In Wicklyffe’s Bible, where we read ‘and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandize,’ it is ‘one into his toun.’ In the story of the Prodigal Son, too, it is similarly employed—‘And he wente and drough him to one of the cyteseynes of that cuntre, and he sente him into his toun to feed swyn.’ Let me quote Chaucer also to the same effect—

Whan I out of the door came, I fast about me beheld, Then saw I but a large field, As farre as ever I might see, Without toune, house, or tree.

It is thus a name I have already mentioned, ‘de la Townshende,’ the parent of our ‘Townsends,’ ‘Townshends,’ and ‘Townends,’ has arisen. Another entry, that of ‘Robert Withouten-town,’ has, as we might have expected, left no issue. Such names as ‘Adam de la Bury,’ or ‘Walter atte Bure,’ or ‘John atte Burende’ (the latter now extinct, I fear), open out to us a still larger mass of existing nomenclature. The manorial residence is still in many parts of England, with the country folk, the ‘bury.’ To this or ‘borough’ we owe our ‘Burys,’ ‘Boroughs,’ ‘Borrows,’ ‘Buroughs,’ ‘Burkes,’ ‘Broughs,’ ‘Burghs,’ and even ‘Bugges,’ so that, though Hood has inquired—

If a party had a voice, What mortal would be a Bugg by choice?

still the possessors of that not exactly euphonious cognomen can reflect with pride upon not merely a long pedigree, but lofty relationships. Another form of the same word, familiar, too, to early registers, was ‘de la Bere,’ and to this we owe our ‘Berrys,’ ‘Berrimans,’ ‘Beers,’ and ‘Beares.’ It is wonderful how the strict meaning of ‘shelter’ is preserved in all the terms founded upon its root ‘beorgan,’ to hide. Is it a repository to guard the ashes of the dead?—it is a barrow, the act of sepulture itself being the burial. Is it a refuge for the coneys?—it is a burrow, or beare, as in ‘Coneybeare.’[131] Is it a raised mound for the security of man?—it is a bury, borough, brough, or burgh. How altered now the meaning of these two words ‘borough’ and ‘town.’ Once but the abiding-place of a scattered family or two, they are now the centres of teeming populations. Of these, while some are still extending their tether, others have passed the middle age of their strength and vigour, and from the accidents of physical and industrial life are but surely succumbing to that dotage which, as in man so in man’s works, seems to be but premonitory of their final decay. How true is it that the fashion of this world passeth away. Even now this ever restless spirit of change is going on. We ourselves can scarce tell the spot upon which we were born. We need not wait for death to find that our place very soon knoweth us no more, and when we talk of treading in the footprints of the generations that have gone before, it would seem as though it were but to blind ourselves to the sober and unwelcome truth that we are rather treading upon the débris of the changing years.

But there is another class of surnames we may fitly introduce here, which, I doubt not, forms no small proportion in the aggregate mass of our nomenclature—that of sign-names. We in a cultivated age like that of the present fail, as we must, to realize the effect of these latter upon the current life of our forefathers. We now pass up and down a street, and, apart from the aid of the numbered doors and larger windows, and a more peculiar frontage, above the door we may see the name of the proprietor and the character of his occupation in letters so large that it is literally a fact that he who runs may read them. But all this is of gradual and slowly developed growth. The day we are considering knew nothing of these. It was a time when the clergy themselves in many cases were unable to read, when such education as a child of twelve years is now a dunce not to know would have given then for the possession of like attainments the sobriquet of ‘le Clerke’ or ‘le Beauclerk.’ And if this was the case with the learned, what would it be with the lower grades and classes of society? We may, therefore, well inquire what would be the use of gilded characters such as we now-a-days may see, detailing the name of the shopkeeper and the fashion of his stores? None at all. They could not read them. Thus we find in their stead the practice prevailing of putting up signs and symbols to denote the character of the shop, or to mark the individuality of the owner. In an age of escutcheons and all the insignia of heraldry, this was but natural. All manner of instruments, all styles of dress, all kinds of ensigns rudely carved or painted, that a rough or quaint fancy could suggest, were placed in a conspicuous position by the hatch or over the doorway, to catch, if it were possible, the eye of the wayfarer. Even the name itself, when it was capable of being so played upon, was turned into a symbol readable to the popular mind. Nor was it deemed necessary that the device should speak directly of the trade. Apart from implements and utensils, Nature herself was exhausted to supply sufficiently attractive signs; and what with mermaids and griffins, unicorns and centaurs, and other winged monsters, we see that they did not stop here—the supernatural also had to be pressed into this service. The animal kingdom was, however, specially popular—the hostelries peculiarly engrossing this class from the fact that they so often had emblazoned the recognizances of the family with which they stood immediately connected. Thus we still have ‘Red Lions’ and ‘White Lions,’ ‘Blue Boars’ and ‘Boars’ Heads,’ ‘White Bears’ and ‘Roebucks,’ and ‘Bulls’ Heads.’ Relics of the more special emblems remain in the barber’s pole, to the end of which a bowl was once generally attached, to show he was a surgeon also—the pawnbroker’s three balls, the goldbeater’s mallet, or the shoemaker’s last. Of the more fanciful we have a capital idea given us in the lines from Pasquin’s ‘Nightcap,’ written so late as 1612—

First there is maister Peter at the Bell, A linen-draper, and a wealthy man; Then maister Thomas that doth stockings sell; And George the Grocer at the Frying-pan; And maister Timothie the woollen-draper; And maister Salamon the leather-scraper; And maister Frank the goldsmith at the Rose, And maister Philip with the fiery nose; And maister Miles the mercer at the Harrow; And maister Mike the silkman at the Plow; And maister Nicke the salter at the Sparrow; And maister Dick the vintner at the Cow; And Harry haberdasher at the Horne; And Oliver the dyer at the Thorne; And Bernard, barber-surgeon at the Fiddle; And Moses, merchant-tailor at the Needle.[132]

More than three hundred years previous to this we find such names figuring in our registers as ‘John de la Rose,’ ‘John atte Belle,’ ‘Roger Horne,’ and ‘Nicholas Sparewe,’ while ‘Cow’ is met by its Norman equivalent in the instance of ‘Richard de la Vache.’ Of the rest, too, contained in the above lines, all are found in our existing nomenclature with the exception of ‘Fryingpan.’ Still more recently, the ‘British Apollo’ contained the following:—

I’m amused at the signs As I pass through the town, To see the odd mixture— A ‘Magpie and Crown,’ The ‘Whale and the Crow,’ The ‘Razor and Hen,’ The ‘Leg and Seven Stars,’ The ‘Scissors and Pen,’ The ‘Axe and the Bottle,’ The ‘Tun and the Lute,’ The ‘Eagle and Child,’ The ‘Shovel and Boot.’

A word or two about these double signs before we pass on, as I cannot but think much ingenious nonsense has been written thereon. There can be no difficulty in accounting for these strange combinations, some of which still exist. A partnership in business would be readily understood by the conjoining of two hitherto separate signs. An apprentice who, on the death of his master, had succeeded to his business, would gladly retain the previous well-established badge, and simply show the change of hands by adding thereto his own. I cannot but think that such ingenious derivations as ‘God encompasseth us’ for the ‘Goat and Compasses,’ or the ‘Satyr and Bacchanals’ for the ‘Devil and Bag-o’-nails,’ or the ‘Boulogne Mouth’ for the ‘Bull and Mouth,’ are altogether unnecessary. A clever and imaginative mind could soon produce similar happy plays upon the conjunctions contained in the above lines, and yet the originations I have suggested for them all I think my readers will admit to be most natural. There is no more peculiarity about these than about the ordinary combinations of names we are accustomed to see in the streets every day of our lives, denoting partnership. Thus the only difference is that what we now read as ‘Smith and Wright,’ in an age when reading was less universal was, say, ‘Magpie and Crown.’ Partnerships, or business transactions, often bring peculiar conjunctions of names. So early as 1284, I find a ‘Nicholas Bacun’ acknowledging a bond to a certain ‘Hugh Motun,’ i.e. Mutton. (Riley’s ‘London,’ p. 23.) I have myself come across such combinations as ‘Shepherd and Calvert’—i.e. ‘Calveherd,’ or ‘Sparrow and Nightingale,’ or ‘Latimer and Ridley.’ During the early portion of my residence at Oxford the two Bible-clerkships connected with my college were in the hands of two gentlemen named ‘Robinson’ and ‘Crusoe.’ They lived on the same staircase, and their names being (as is customary) emblazoned above the door, the coincidence was the more remarkable. ‘Catchem’ and ‘Cheetham’ is said to have been the title of a lawyer’s firm, but I will not vouch for the accuracy of the statement. A story, too, goes that ‘Penn, Quill, and Driver’ once figured over a scrivener’s office, but this is still more hypothetical.

But to return. We may see, from what we have stated and quoted, that up to a comparatively recent period the written name seems to have been anything but customary even in the metropolis. Any one who will look into a book printed up to the seventeenth century will see on the titlepage the fact stated that it was published or sold at the sign of the ‘Stork,’ or ‘Crown,’ or ‘Peacock,’ or ‘Crane,’ as the case might be. How much we owe to this fashion I need scarcely say. The Hundred Rolls contain not merely a ‘Henry le Hatter,’ but a ‘Thomas del Hat;’ not only an ‘Adam le Lorimer,’ but a ‘Margery de Styrop.’ It is to some dealer in earthenware we owe our existing ‘Potts,’ some worker in metals our ‘Hammers,’ some carpenter our ‘Coffins,’ once synonymous with ‘Coffer,’ some osierbinder our ‘Basketts,’ some shoemaker our ‘Lasts,’ some cheesemonger our ‘Cheeses,’ some plowright our ‘Plows,’ some silversmith our ‘Spoons’ and ‘Silverspoons,’ and some cooper our ‘Tubbs’ and ‘Cades,’ our ‘Barrills’ and ‘Punshons,’ and so on with endless others. It was perfectly natural that all these should become surnames, that the same practice which led to men being called in the less populous country by such names as ‘Ralph atte Townsend,’ or ‘William atte Stile,’ or ‘Henry atte Hatch,’ or ‘Thomas atte Nash,’ should in the more closely inhabited city cause men to be distinguished as ‘Hugh atte Cokke,’ or ‘Walter de Whitehorse,’ or ‘John atte Gote’ or ‘de la Gote,’ or ‘Richard de la Vache,’ or ‘Thomas atte Ram,’ or ‘William atte Roebuck,’ or ‘Gilbert de la Hegle,’ or ‘John de la Roe,’ or ‘Reginald de la Wonte’ (weasel). Our only surprise would be were the case otherwise. Nevertheless, as we shall see in another chapter, many of these animal-names at least have arisen in another manner also.

And now we come to what we may term the second branch of local surnames, that branch which throws a light upon the migratory habits and roving tendencies of our forefathers. So far we have touched upon names implying a fixed residence in a fixed locality. We may now notice that class which by their very formation throw our minds upon that which precedes settlement in a particular spot, viz., removal—that which speaks to us of immigration. Such a name in our mediæval rolls as ‘Peter le Newe,’ or ‘Gilbert le Newcomen,’ or ‘Walter le Neweman,’ declares to us at once its origin. The owner has left his native village to push his interests and get a livelihood elsewhere, and upon his entrance as a stranger into some distant community, alone and friendless, nothing could be more natural than to distinguish him from the familiar ‘Peters,’ ‘Gilberts,’ and ‘Walters’ around by styling him as Peter, or Gilbert, or Walter the ‘New,’ or ‘Newman.’ This it is which is the origin of our ‘Stranges,’ descendants as they are of such mediæval folk as ‘Roger le Estrange’ or ‘Roger le Straunge.’ There was ‘Roger the Cooper’ and ‘Roger the Cheesemonger’ round the corner close to the market cross, and ‘Roger atte Ram,’ so, of course, this new-comer as distinguished from them was ‘Roger the Straunge’ or ‘Strange,’ and once so known, the more familiar he became, the more ‘Strange’ he became, though this may seem somewhat of a paradox. Thus, too, have arisen our ‘Strangers’ and ‘Strangemans.’ These, however, are the general terms. To quote a name like ‘Robert de Eastham’ or ‘William de Sutton’ is, as it were, to take up the plug from a never-ceasing fountain. We are thrown upon a list of sobriquets to which there is no tether. Take up a subscription paper, look over a list of speakers at a farmers’ dinner, scan the names of the clergy at a ministerial conference, all will possess a fair average of this class of surnames, early wanderers from one village to another, Saxons fresh escaped from serfdom seeking a livelihood in a new district, Norman tradesmen or retainers pushing forward for fresh positions and fresh gains in fresh fields. It is through the frequency of these has arisen the old couplet quoted by Verstigan—

In ‘Ford,’ in ‘Ham,’ in ‘Ley,’ in ‘Ton,’ The most of English surnames run.

There is probably no village or hamlet in England which has not subscribed in this manner to the sum total of our nomenclature. It is this which is so telltale of the present, for while a small rural spot like, say ‘Debenham,’ in Suffolk, or ‘Ashford,’ in Derbyshire, will have its score of representatives, a solitary ‘Richard de Lyverpole,’ or ‘Guido de Mancestre,’ or ‘John de Burmyngham’ will be all we can find to represent such large centres of population as Manchester, or Liverpool, or Birmingham. Mushroomlike they sprang up but yesterday, while for centuries these insignificant hamlets have pursued the even tenor of their way, somewhat disturbed, it may have been, from their equanimity four or five centuries agone, by the announcement that Ralph or Miles was about to leave them, and who, by thus becoming ‘Ralph de Debenham’ or ‘Miles de Ashford,’ have given to the world to the end of time the story of their early departure.

In the same class with the village names of England must we set our county surnames. These are of course but an insignificant number set by their brethren, still we must not pass them by without a word. In the present day, if we were to speak of a man in connexion with his county, we should say he was a Derbyshire or a Lancashire man, as the case might be. That they did this five or six hundred years ago is evidenced by the existence of these very names in our midst. Thus we can point in our records to such designations as ‘John Hamshire,’ or ‘Adam de Kent,’ or ‘Richard de Wiltshire,’ or ‘Geoffrey de Cornwayle.’ Still this was not the only form of county nomenclature. The Normans, I suspect it was, who introduced another. We have still ‘Kentish’ and ‘Devonish’ and ‘Cornish’ to represent the ‘William le Kentish’s,’ or ‘John le Devoneis’s,’ or ‘Margery le Cornyshe’s,’ of their early rolls; and our ‘Cornwallis’s’ also yet preserve such fuller forms as ‘Thomas le Cornwaleys,’ or ‘Philip le Cornwaleys.’

We may here mention our ‘Cockins,’ ‘Cockaignes,’ and ‘Cockaynes,’ instances of which are early found. An old poem begins—

Fur in sea, bi west Spayne, Is a lond ihote Cockaigne.

There seems to be a general agreement among those who have studied the subject that our ‘cockney’ was originally a denizen of this fabled region, and then was afterwards, from a notion of London being the seat of luxury and effeminacy, transferred to that city. A ‘William Cockayne’ is found in the ‘Placitorum’ of Richard I.’s reign, while the Hundred Rolls are yet more precise in a ‘Richarde de Cockayne.’ Speaking of London, however, we must not forget our ‘Londonish’s.’ They are but relics of such mediæval entries as ‘Ralph le Lundreys,’ or ‘William Londonissh,’ either of whom we should now term ‘Londoner,’ one who had come from the metropolis and settled somewhere in the country. Chaucer in one of his prose works spells it ‘Londenoys,’ which is somewhat nearer the modern form. ‘London,’ once simple ‘de London,’ needs no remark.

A passing from one part of the British Empire to another has been a prolific source of nomenclature. Thus we find such names as ‘Henry de Irlaund,’ ‘Adam de Irland,’ ‘John le Irreys,’ or ‘Thomas le Ireis,’ in the ordinary dress of ‘Ireland’ and ‘Irish,’ to be by no means obsolete in the present day. ‘Roger le Escot’ or ‘Maurice le Scot’ represents, I need scarcely say, a surname that is all but interminable, the Caledonian having ever been celebrated for his roving as well as canny propensities. It is to our brethren over the Border, too, we owe the more special form of ‘Inglis,’ known better in the south as ‘English.’ The Hundred Rolls furnish us with such names as ‘Walter le Engleis,’ or ‘Robert le Engleys,’ or ‘Walter Ingeleys.’ Laurence Minot has the modern form. Describing Edward III.’s entrance into Brabant, he says—

The Inglis men were armed wéle, Both in yren and in stele.

The representatives of our native-born Welshmen are well-nigh as numerous as those across the Scottish line, and the early spellings we light upon are equally varied—‘le Galeys,’[133] ‘le Waleys,’ ‘le Waleis,’ and ‘le Walsshe’ being, however, the commonest. The last is used by Piers Plowman, who speaks of

Rose the Disheress, Godfrey of Garlekhithe, And Gryfin the Walshe.

In these, of course, we at once discern the progenitors of our ‘Welshs’ and ‘Wallaces.’ ‘Walshman’ is also found as ‘Walseman.’ ‘Langlois’ seems to be firmly established in our present midst as an importation from France. It was evidently returned to us all but contemporaneously with its rise there, for as ‘L’Angleys’ or ‘Lengleyse,’ it is found on English soil in the thirteenth century. It is quite possible that our ‘Langleys’ are in some instances but a corruption of this name. Thus the different quarters of the British Empire are well personified so far as our directories are concerned.

We have not quite done with the home country, however. Our modern ‘Norris’s’ are of a somewhat comprehensive nature. In the first place there can be little doubt they have become confounded by lapse of time with the once not unfamiliar ‘la Noryce,’ or nurse. Apart from this, too, the term ‘le Noreys’ was ever applied in early times to the Norwegians, and to this sense mainly it is that we owe the rise of the name. And yet it has another origin. It was used in the mere sense of ‘northern,’ one from the North-country. Thus in the Hundred Rolls we meet with the two names of ‘Thomas le Noreys’ and ‘Geoffrey le Northern,’ and there is no reason why these should not both have had the same rise. A proof in favour of this view lies in the fact that we have their counterparts in such entries as ‘Thomas le Surreys’ and ‘Thomas le Southern,’ the latter now found in the other forms of ‘Sothern’ and ‘Sotheran.’ Nor are the other points of the compass wanting. A ‘Richard le Westrys’ and a ‘Richard le Estrys’ both occur in the registers of the thirteenth century, but neither, I believe, now exists. ‘North’ found as ‘de North’ needs no explanation, and the same can be said for our ‘Souths,’ ‘Easts,’ and ‘Wests.’

The distance from Dover to Calais is not great; but were it otherwise, we should still feel bound in our notice of names of foreign introduction first of all to mention Normandy. For not merely has this country supplied us with many of our best family names, but it enjoys the distinction of having been the first to establish an hereditary surname. This it did in the case of the barons and their feudary settlements. The close of the eleventh century we may safely say saw as yet but one class of sobriquets, which, together with their other property, fathers were in the habit of handing down to their sons. This class was local, and was attached only to those followers of the Conqueror who had been presented by their leader with landed estates in the country they had but recently subdued. As a rule each of these feudatories took as his surname the place whence he had set forth in his Norman home. Thus arose so many of our sobriquets of which ‘Burke’s Peerage’ is the best directory, and of which therefore I have little to say here. Thus arose the ‘de Mortimers’ (the prefix was retained for many generations by all), the ‘de Colevilles,’ the ‘de Corbets,’ the ‘de Ferrers,’ the ‘de Beauchamps,’ the ‘de Courcys,’ the ‘de Lucys,’ and the ‘de Granvilles.’ Thus have sprung our ‘Harcourts,’ our Tankervilles,’ our ‘Nevilles,’ our ‘Bovilles,’ our Baskervilles,’ our ‘Lascelles,’ our ‘Beaumonts,’ our ‘Villiers,’ our ‘Mohuns,’ and our ‘Percys.’ Apropos of Granville, a story is told of a former Lord Lyttelton contesting with the head of that stock priority of family, and clenching his argument by asserting his to be necessarily the most ancient, inasmuch as the littletown must have existed before the grand-ville. A similar dispute is said to have occurred at Venice between the families ‘Ponti’ and ‘Canali’—the one asserting that the ‘Bridges’ were above the ‘Canals,’ the other that the ‘Canals’ were in existence before the ‘Bridges.’ So hot waxed the quarrel that the Senate was compelled to remind the disputants that it had power alike to stop up Canals and pull down Bridges if they became over troublesome. But to return: the number of these Norman names was great. The muster-roll of William’s army comprised but an item of the foreign incomers. As the tide of after-immigration set in, there was no town, however insignificant, in Normandy, or in the Duchies of Anjou and Maine, which was not soon represented in the nomenclature of the land. From giving even a partial list of these I must refrain, however tempted, but see what the chapelries alone did for us. St. Denys gave us our ‘Sidneys,’ St. Clair, or Clare, our ‘Sinclairs,’ vilely corrupted at times into ‘Sinkler;’ St. Paul, our ‘Semples,’ ‘Samples,’ ‘Sempills,’ ‘Simpoles,’ and sometimes ‘Simples;’ St. Lowe, or Loe, our ‘Sallows;’ St. Amand, our ‘Sandemans’ and ‘Samands;’ St. Lis, our ‘Senlis’ and ‘Senleys;’ St. Saviour, our ‘Sissivers;’ St. Maur, our ‘Seymours;’ St. Barbe, our ‘Symbarbes;’ St. Hillary, our ‘Sillerys;’ St. Pierre, our ‘Sempers’ and ‘Simpers;’ St. Austin, our ‘Sustins;’ St. Omer, our ‘Somers;’ St. Leger, our ‘Sellingers,’ once more literally enrolled as ‘Steleger,’ and so on with our less corrupted ‘St. Johns,’ ‘St. Georges,’ and others. I do not say, however, that all these were later comers. Some of them must undoubtedly be set among the earlier comrades in arms of the Conqueror. Indeed it is impossible in every case to separate the warlike from the peaceful invasion. Looking back from this distant period, and with but scanty and imperfect memorials for guidance, it cannot but be so.

With respect to another class of these Norman names, however, we are more certain. Their very formation seems to imply beyond a doubt that they had a settlement as surnames in their own arrondissements before their arrival on English soil. We may, therefore, with tolerable certainty set them down as later comers. The distinguishing marks of these are the prefixes ‘de la,’ or ‘del,’ or ‘du’ attached to them. Thus from some local peculiarity with respect to their early homes would arise such names as ‘Delamere,’ ‘Dupont,’ ‘Delisle,’ ‘Delarue,’ ‘Dubois,’ ‘Ducatel,’ ‘Defontaine,’ ‘Decroix,’ or ‘Deville’ or ‘Deyville.’ This latter is now found also in the somewhat unpleasant form of ‘Devil.’ They say the devil is the source of every evil. Whether this extends beyond the moral world may be open to doubt, but our ‘Evils,’ ‘Evills,’ and ‘Eyvilles,’ from the fact of their once being written with the prefix ‘de,’ seem to favour the suspicion of there being a somewhat dangerous relationship between them.[134] These names, though commonly met with in mediæval records, are, nevertheless, I say, not to be put down as coeval with the Conquest, but as after-introductions when England was securely won. There befell Norman names of this class, however, what I have shown still more commonly to have befallen those of a similar, but more Saxon, category. If these prefixes ‘de la,’ ‘del,’ and ‘du’ are sometimes found retained, they are as often conspicuous by their absence. Thus while at an early date after the Conquest we find the Saxon ‘Atwood’ met by the Norman ‘Dubois,’ it is equally true that they had already to battle with simple ‘Wood’ and ‘Boys’ or ‘Boyce.’ Thus it was we find so early the Saxon ‘Beech’ faced by the Norman ‘Fail’ or ‘Fayle,’ ‘Ash’ by ‘Freen,’ ‘Frean,’ or ‘Freyne,’ ‘Hasell’ by ‘Coudray,’ ‘Alder’ by ‘Aunay,’ and, let us say, for want of a ‘Walnut,’ ‘Nut’ by ‘Noyes.’ In the same way our ‘Halls’ or ‘Hales’ were matched by ‘Meynell’ (mesnil), ‘Hill’ by ‘Montaigne,’ now also ‘Mountain,’ ‘Mead’ or ‘Medd,’ or ‘Field,’ by ‘Prall’ or ‘Prail,’ relics of the old ‘prayell,’ a little meadow. I have just set ‘Wood’ by our ‘Boys’ and ‘Boyces.’ To these we must add our ‘Busks,’ ‘Bushes,’ ‘Busses,’ all from ‘bois’ or ‘bosc.’ The ‘taillis,’ or underwood, too, gives us ‘Tallis,’ and the union of both in ‘Taillebois’ or ‘Talboys,’ as we now have it, combines the names of two of our best church musicians—‘Tallis’ and ‘Boyce.’ This comparison of early introduced Norman with names of a Saxon local character we might carry on to any extent, but this must suffice—illustrations and not categories are all we can pretend to attempt.

But these were not our only foreign introduced names. Coeval with the arrival of these later Norman designations a remarkable peculiarity began to make itself apparent in the vast number of names that poured in from various and more distant parts of the Continent. That they came for purposes of trade, and to settle down into positions that the Saxons themselves should have occupied, is undoubted. The lethargy of the Saxon population at this period would be extraordinary, if it were not so easily to be accounted for. There was no heart in the nation. The Saxons had become a conquered people, and, although the spirit of Hereward the Wake was quenched, there had come that settled sullen humour which, finding no outlet for active enmity, fed in spirit upon itself, and increased with the pampering. To punish open disaffection is easy; to eradicate by the stern arm of power such a feeling as this is impossible. Time alone can do it, and that but slowly. More than a century after this we find Robin Hood the idol of popular sympathy; no national hero has ever eclipsed him, and yet, putting sentiment aside, he was naught but a robber, an outlawed knave. He was but a vent for the still lingering current of a people’s feelings. It was but the Saxon and Norman over again.

We can easily imagine, then, if the spirit of the people was so lethargic as this, at how low an ebb would be the commercial enterprise of this period. No country was there whose resources for self-aggrandisement were greater than our own—none which had more disregarded them up to the reign of the third Edward. Till then she was the mere mine from which other countries might draw forth riches, the carcase for the eagles of many nations to feed upon. Saving the exportation of wool in its raw unmanufactured state, she did nothing for her national prosperity. The Dutch cured the fish they themselves caught on our coasts, and the looms of Flanders and Brabant manufactured the weft and warp we sent them into the cloth we wore. If our kings and barons were clad in scarlet and purple, little had England actively to do with that; her share in such superior tints was nought, save the production of the dye, for in conjunction with the Eastern indigo it was our woad the Netherlands used. That other nations were advancing, and that ours was not, is a statement, commercially speaking, I need not enlarge upon; it is a mere matter of history which no one disputes.

Not, however, that there was no trade. Far from it. Long before Edward III. had established a surer basis of order and industry, London had become a mart of no small Continental importance. This outlying city, as with other towns of growing industry abroad, had come under the beneficial influence of the Crusades. So far as the redemption of the Holy City was concerned, that strong, but noble madness which had set Christendom ablaze was a failure. But it effected much in another way. From the first moment when on the waters of the Levant were assembled a host as diverse in nation as they were one in purpose; when in their high-decked galleons and oar-banked pinnances men met each other face to face of whose national existence they had been previously all but unaware—one result, at least, was sure to follow—an intercommunion of nations was inevitable, and, in the wake of this, other and not less beneficial consequences. Healthy comparisons were drawn, jealousies were allayed, navigation was improved, better ships were built, harbours hitherto avoided as dangerous were rendered safe, and new havens were discovered. This influence was felt everywhere. It reached so far as England—London felt it.

But it was a minor influence—minor in comparison with our wonderful appliances—minor in comparison with the commercial spirit developing such Republics as Genoa and Venice, or the Easterling countries that border the Baltic and German Seas—a minor influence, too, especially because the Saxons had so little share in it. So far as they were concerned, this internationality was all one-sided. Denizens of all lands visited our shores, but their visits were unreturned. What an infinitesimal part of our Continental surnames in the present day are traceable to English sources. On the other hand, there was no town however small, no hamlet however insignificant, in Normandy, in the Duchies of Anjou and Maine, or protected by the cities of the Hanseatic League, that is unrepresented in the nomenclature of our land. Nay, it was this very lack of reciprocity of commerce that held out such inducements to the dwellers in other lands to visit our shores. It was to step into possession of those very advantages we slighted they came: we became but a colony of foreign artisans. Truly our metropolis in those early days of her industry was a motley community. Numerous names of foreign locality have died out in the lapse of centuries between; a large proportion have become so Anglicized that we cannot detect their Continental birth, but there is still a formidable array left in our midst whose lineage is manifest, and whose nationality is not to be doubted. We dare not enumerate them all. Let us, however, take a short tour over Europe and the East. We will begin with Normandy, and advance westerly, and then southerly. The provinces that border upon Normandy and Bretagne, especially to the south and eastwards, large or small, have, as we should expect, supplied us with many names. We have besides ‘Norman,’ which, like ‘le Northern,’ is of doubtful locality, ‘Bret,’ ‘Brett,’ ‘Britt,’ ‘Britten,’ ‘Briton,’ and ‘Brittain,’ from ‘Bretagne,’ and represented in our olden rolls by such men as ‘Hamo le Bret,’ or ‘Roger le Breton,’ or ‘Thomas le Brit,’ or ‘Ivo le Briton.’ Our ‘Angers’ are not necessarily so irascible as they look, for they are but corruptions, as are ‘Angwin’ and ‘Aungier,’ of the ‘Angevine of Anjou.’ Like our ‘Maines’ and ‘Maynes’ from the neighbouring duchy, they would be likely visitors to our shores from the intimate relationship which for a while endured between the two countries through royal alliances. Our ‘Arters’ and ‘Artis,’ once registered ‘de Artoys,’ came from ‘Artois;’ our ‘Gaskins,’ and more correct ‘Gascoignes,’ from ‘Gascony;’ and our ‘Burgons’ and ‘Burgoynes’ from Burgundy.[135] To Champagne it is we are indebted for our ‘Champneys’ and ‘Champness’s,’ descendants as they are from such old incomers as ‘Robert le Champeneis,’ or ‘Roger le Chaumpeneys,’ while the more strictly local form appears in our ‘Champagnes,’ not to say some of our ‘Champions’ and ‘Campions.’[136] Speaking of Champagne, it is curious that next in topographical order come our ‘Port-wines,’ sprung from the Poictevine of Poictou. So early as the thirteenth century, this name had become corrupted into ‘Potewyne,’ a ‘Pretiosa Potewyne’ occurring in the Hundred Rolls of that period. More correct representatives are found in such entries as ‘Henry le Poytevin,’ and ‘Peter le Pettevin.’ Pickardy has given us our ‘Pickards’ and ‘Pycards,’ Provence our ‘Provinces,’ and Lorraine our ‘Loraynes,’ ‘Lorraines,’ and ‘Lorings.’ ‘Peter le Loring’ and ‘John le Loring’ are instances of the latter form. More general terms for the countrymen of these various provinces are found in such registered names as ‘Gilbert le Fraunceis,’ or ‘Henry le Franceis,’ or ‘Peter le Frensh,’ or ‘Gyllaume Freynsman.’

I have mentioned ‘Norman’—one of the commonest of early sobriquets is ‘le Bigod’ and ‘le Bigot.’ Well-nigh every record has its ‘Roger le Bygod,’ or its ‘William le Bygot,’ or ‘Hugh le Bigot,’ or ‘Alina le Bigod.’ Amid the varying opinions of so many high authorities, I dare not speak in anywise with confidence; but, judging from these very entries which are found at an early period, I cannot but think Dean Trench and Mr. Wedgwood wrong in their conjecture that the word arose from the ‘beguines’—i.e. the Franciscans. With Mr. Taylor[137] I am firmly convinced it is ethnic, and that as such it was familiarly applied to the Normans I am equally satisfied. In proof of its national character, Mr. Taylor quotes a passage from the romance of Gerard of Roussillon—

Bigot, e Provençal e Rouergues, E Bascle, e Gasco, e Bordales.

The popular story ascribes its origin to the fondness for oaths so peculiar to the Anglo-Norman character, and in this particular instance to the exclamation ‘by-God.’[138] My own impression is that the origin of the word has yet to be found. With regard to surnames, however, I may say that we have at this day ‘Bigots’ in our directories as well as in everything else, and it is highly probable that our Bagots are but a corruption of the same.

Turning westward, such names as ‘Michael de Spaigne,’ or ‘Arnold de Espaigne,’ tell us at once who were the forefathers of our ‘Spains’ and ‘Espins;’[139] while ‘John le Moor’ suggests to us at least the possibility that English heathlands did not enjoy the entire monopoly in the production of this familiar cognomen. The intensive ‘Blackamoor,’ a mere compound of ‘black’ and ‘moor,’ seems to have early existed. A ‘Beatrice Blackamour’ and a ‘William Blackamore’ occur in a London Register of 1417—(Riley’s ‘London,’ p. 647). Nor is Italy void of examples. The sturdy old republic of Genoa has supplied us with ‘Janeway’ and ‘Jannaway,’[140] ‘Genese’ and ‘Jayne’ or ‘Jeane.’ Chaucer alludes to the Genoese coin the ‘jane.’ An old poem, too, speaking of Brabant as a general mart, says—

Englysshe and Frensh, Lumbardes, Januayes, Cathalones, theder they take their wayes.

The ‘Libel on English Policy’ has the word in a similar dress.

The Janueys comyne in sondre wyses, Into this londe wyth dyverse merchaundysses, In grete karrekes arrayde withouten lack, Wyth clothes of golde, silke, and pepir black.

Hall, in his Chronicles, speaking of the Duke of Clarence ravaging the French coast in Henry IV.’s reign, says, ‘in his retournyng he encountred with two greate Carickes of Jeane laden with ryche marchandise.’ (f. xxiv.)

Its old rival upon the Adriatic still vies with it in ‘Veness,’ once enrolled as ‘de Venise.’ Rome has given us our early ‘Reginald le Romayns’ and ‘John le Romayns,’ whose descendants now write their names in the all but unaltered form of ‘Romaine,’[141] and to Lombardy and the Jews we owe Lombard street, and our ‘Lombards,’ ‘Lumbards,’ ‘Lubbards,’ and perhaps ‘Lubbers’—not to mention our ‘Luckes,’ and ‘Luckies,’ a progenitor of whom I find inscribed in the Hundred Rolls as ‘Luke of Lucca.’ Advancing eastwards, a ‘Martin le Hunne’ looks strangely as if sprung from a Hungarian source. Whatever doubt, however, there may be on this point, there can be none on ‘William le Turc,’[142] whose name is no solitary one in the records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and whose descendants are by no means extinct in the nineteenth. ‘Peter le Russe’ would seem at first sight to be of Russian origin, especially with such a Christian name to the fore as the one above, but it is far more probably one more form of the endless corruptions of ‘le Rous,’ a sobriquet of complexion so extremely familiar to all who have spent any time over mediæval registers. I have already mentioned ‘le Norrys’ as connected with our ‘Norris.’ ‘Dennis,’ I doubt not, in some cases, is equally representative of the former ‘le Daneys.’ Entries like ‘William le Norris,’ or ‘Walter le Norreis,’ or ‘Roger le Daneis,’ or ‘Joel le Deneys,’ are of constant occurrence. These, added to the others, may be mentioned as bringing before our eyes the broadest limits of European immigration, and with scarcely an exception they are found among the English surnames of to-day.

But we must not forget the Dutch—a term that once embraced all the German race.[143] ‘Dutchman,’ though I have found no instance in early rolls, is, I see, a denizen of our present directories, while ‘Dutchwomen,’ found in the fourteenth century, is extinct. Our ‘Pruces’ are but the old ‘le Pruce,’ or Prussian, as we should now term them. The word is met with in an old political song, and, as it contains a list of articles, the introduction of which into England from Flanders made the two countries so closely connected, I will quote it fully:—

Now beer and bacon bene fro Pruse i-brought Into fflaunders, as loved and fere i-soughte; Osmonde, coppre, bowstaffes, stile and wex, Peltre-ware, and grey, pych, tar, borde, and flex, And Coleyne threde, fustiane, and canvase, Corde, bokeram, of old tyme thus it wase. But the fflemmynges among these things dere, Incomen loven beste bacon and beer.

‘Fleming,’ as our registers prove, was seemingly the popular term for all the Low Countrymen, bands of whom were specially invited over by two of our kings to spread their industry in our own land. Numbers of them came in, however, as simple wool-merchants, to transmit the raw material into Holland. As the old ‘Libel on English Policy’ says—

But ye Fleminges, if ye be not wrothe, The grete substance of your cloth, at the fulle, Ye wot ye made it of youre English wolle.

But Flanders was not the only division represented. Our ‘Brabazons’ once written ‘le Brabançon,’ together with our ‘Brabants,’ ‘Brabaners,’ and ‘Brabans,’ issued, of course, from the duchy of that name; while our ‘Hanways’[144] and ‘Hannants’ hailed from Hainault, the latter of the two representing the usual early English pronunciation of the place-word. The old enrolled forms are ‘de Hanoia’ and ‘de Henau.’ It is very likely, therefore, that our ‘Hannahs’ are similarly derived. The poem I have just quoted, after mentioning the products of ‘Braban,’ ‘Selaunde,’ and ‘Henaulde,’ proceeds to say:—

But they of Holonde at Caleyse buy our felles And our wolles, that Englyshe men then selles.

This, and such an entry as ‘Thurstan de Holland,’ give us at once a clue, if clue were needed, to the source whence have issued our ‘Hollands.’ Holandman,’ which once existed, is, I believe, now extinct. A common sobriquet for those enterprising traders who visited us from the shores of the Baltic was ‘Easterling,’ and it is to their honest integrity as merchants we owe the fact of their name in the form of ‘Sterling’ being so familiar. In contrast to the country-made money, their coin obtained the name of ‘Easterling,’ or, as we now term it, ‘Sterling’ money—so many pounds sterling being the ordinary phrase for good and true coin. We have even come to apply the term generally in such phrases as sterling worth, sterling honesty, or sterling character. The more inland traders were styled ‘Almaines,’ or merchants ‘d’Almaine,’[145] terms common enough in our earlier archives, as ‘le Aleman,’ or ‘de Almania,’ or ‘le Alemaund,’ and thus have sprung our ‘Alemans,’ ‘Almaines,’ and ‘Allmans,’ and through the French, probably, our ‘Lallimands,’ ‘D’Almaines,’ ‘Dalmaines,’ and more perverted ‘Dalmans’ and ‘Dollmans.’[146] Thus to these enterprising and honest traders we owe a surname which from the odious forms it has assumed shows that their names, at least, were corruptible, if not their credit. I ought to have mentioned, though I have no record to quote in proof of my assertion, that our ‘Hansards’ are, I have no doubt, descendants of such Hanse merchants in our country as were members of the Hanseatic League. The founder of the Hansards, the publishers of the Parliamentary Debates, came from Norwich in the middle of the last century, and I need scarcely say that the city was the chief headquarters of the Flemish weaving interest at the date we are considering.

Leaving Europe for a moment, a name of peculiar interest is that of ‘Sarson,’[147] or ‘Sarasin,’ a sobriquet undoubtedly sprung from the Crusades in the East, and found contemporaneously, or immediately afterwards, in England as ‘Sarrasin,’ ‘Sarrazein,’ ‘Sarracen,’ and in the Latinized form of ‘Sarracenus.’ The maternal grandfather of Thomas à Becket was a pure-blooded Saracen, settled in England. The ‘Saracen’s Head,’ I need not remind the reader, has been a popular inn sign in our land from the days of Cœur de Lion and Godfrey. It would seem as if they were sufficient objects of public curiosity to be exhibited. In the ‘Issues of the Exchequer’ of Henry VI.’s reign is the following:—‘To a certain Dutchman, bringing with him a Saracen to the Kingdom of England, in money paid him in part payment of five marks which the Lord the King commanded to be paid him, to have of his gift.’ Speaking of the Saracens, however, we are led to say a word or two about the Jews, the greatest money-makers, the greatest merchants, the greatest people, in a commercial point of view at least, the world has known. No amount of obloquy, no extent of cruel odium and persecution, could break the spirit of the old Israelitish trader. Driven out of one city, he fled to another. Rifled of his savings in one land, he soon found an asylum in another, till a fresh revolution there also caused either the king or the people to vent their passions and refill their coffers at the expense of the despised Jew. ‘Jury’ would seem to be a corrupted surname taken from the land which our Bible has made so familiar to us. It certainly is derived from this term, but not the Jewry of Palestine. It was that part of any large town which in the Early and Middle Ages was set apart for these people, districts where, if they chose to face contumely and despite, they could live and worship together. Every considerable town in England and the Continent had its Jewish quarters. London with its ‘Jewry’ is no exceptional case. Winchester, York, Norwich, all our early centres of commerce, had the same. Johan Kaye, in his account of the siege of Rhodes, says: ‘All the strete called the Jure by the walles was full of their blood and caren (carrion).’ Our ‘Jurys’[148] are not, however, necessarily Jews, as it is but a local name from residence in such quarters, and doubtless at one time or another during the period of surname establishment Christians may have had habitation there. ‘Jew,’ on the other hand, as representing such former entries as ‘Roger le Jew’ or ‘Mirabilla Judæus,’ is undoubtedly of purely Israelitish descent. But these are not all. Our early records teem with such names as ‘Roger le Convers,’ or ‘Stephen le Convers,’[149] deserters from the Jewish faith. We cannot be surprised at many of the less steady adherents of the ancient creed changing their religious status, when we reflect upon the cruel impositions made upon them at various times.[150] I suspect our ‘Conyers’ have swallowed up the representatives of this name. Even in the day of its rise we find it set down in one record as ‘Nicholas le Conners.’

So much for general and national names. To pretend to give any category of the town-names that have issued from these wide-spread localities were, of course, impossible. Such sobriquets as ‘Argent,’ from Argentan; ‘Charters’ and ‘Charteris’ from Chartres; ‘Bullen,’ ‘Bollen,’ or ‘Boleyn’ from Boulogne,[151] with ‘Bulness’ as representative of ‘le Boloneis;’ ‘Landels’ from Landelles; ‘Death’ or ‘D’Aeth’ from Aeth in Flanders; ‘Twopenny’ from Tupigny in the same province; ‘Gant’ and ‘Gent’ from Ghent, once ‘de Gaunt;’ ‘Legge’ from Liege (in some cases at least); ‘Lubbock,’ once written ‘de Lubyck’ and ‘de Lubek,’ from Lubeck in Saxony; ‘Geneve,’ once ‘de Geneve,’ and ‘Antioch,’ once ‘de Antiochia,’ are but instances taken haphazard from a list, which to extend would occupy all my remaining space. Many of these are connected with particular trades, or branches of trades, for which in their day they had obtained a European celebrity. If the peculiar manufactures of such places at home as ‘Kendall’ and ‘Lindsey’ and ‘Wolsey’ have left in our own nomenclature the marks of their early renown, we should also expect such foreign cities as were more especially united to us by the ties of industry to leave a mark thereof upon our registers. Such names as ‘Ralph de Arras’ or ‘Robert de Arraz,’ a sobriquet not yet extinct in our midst, carry us to Arras in Artois, celebrated for its tapestried hangings.[152] Rennes in Brittany has given birth to our ‘Raines’ and ‘Rains.’[153] Chaucer talks of pillows made of ‘cloth of raines.’ Elsewhere, too, he makes mention of ‘hornpipes of Cornewaile,’ reminding us that in all probability some of our ‘Cornwalls’ hail from Cornouaile in the same province. Romanee in Burgundy, celebrated for its wine, has left a memory of that fact in our ‘Rumneys’ and ‘Rummeys.’ Some of my readers will remember that in the ‘Squyr of low degree’ the king, amongst other pleasures by which to soothe away his daughter’s melancholy, promises her,

Ye shall have Rumney.

Our ‘Challens’ are but lingering memorials of the now decayed woollen manufactures of Chalons, of which we shall have more to say anon; and not to mention others, our ‘Roans’ (always so spelt and pronounced in olden times), our ‘Anvers,’ once ‘de Anvers,’ our ‘Cullings,’ ‘Cullens,’[154] ‘Collinges,’ and ‘Lyons,’ are but relics of former trades for which the several towns of Rouen, and Antwerp, and Cologne, and Lyons, were notorious. The rights of citizenship and all other advantages seem early to have been accorded them. In the thirteenth century we find Robert of Catalonia and Walter Turk acting as sheriffs, and much about the same time a ‘Pycard’ was Mayor of London.

I must stop here. We have surveyed, comparatively speaking, but a few of our local surnames. From the little I have been able to advance, however, it will be clear, I think, that with regard to the general subject of nomenclature these additional sobriquets had become a necessity. The population of England, less than two millions at the period of the Conquest, was rapidly increasing, and, which is of far more importance so far as surnames are concerned, increasing corporately. Population was becoming every day less evenly diffused. Communities were fast being formed, and as circumstances but more and more induced men to herd themselves together, so did the necessity spring up for each to have a more fixed and determinate title than his merely personal or baptismal one, by which he might be more currently known among his fellows.

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III. SURNAMES OF OFFICE

A class of surnames which occupies no mean place in our lists is that which has been bequeathed to us by the dignitaries and officers of mediæval times. Of these sobriquets, while some hold but a precarious existence, a goodly number are firmly established in our midst. On the other hand, as with each other class of our surnames, many that once figured in every register of the period are now extinct. Of these latter not a few have lapsed through the decay of the very systems which brought them into being. While the feudal constitution remained encircled as it was with a complete scheme of service, while the ecclesiastic system of Church government reigned supreme and without a rival, there were numberless offices which in after days fell into desuetude with the principle that held them together. Still, in the great majority of cases the names of these have remained to remind us of their former heyday glory, and to give us an insight into the reality of those now decayed customs to which they owed their rise.

We must be careful, however, at the outset to remark that a certain number of these names ought, strictly speaking, to be set down in our chapter upon sobriquets. They are either vestiges of the many outdoor pageantries and mock ceremonies so popular in that day, or of the numberless nicknames our forefathers loved to affix one upon the other, and in which practice all, high and low alike, joined. For instance, no one could suspect such a sobriquet as ‘Alan le Pope,’ or ‘Hugh le Pape,’ the source of one of our commonest and most familiar names, to be derived from the possessor of that loftiest of ecclesiastic offices.[155] It could be but a nickname, and was doubtless given to some unlucky individual whose overweening and pretentious bearing had brought upon him the affix. So, again, would it be with such a title as ‘Robert le Keser,’ that is, Cæsar, corresponding to the French ‘L’empriere’ and the obsolete Norman ‘le Emperer.’ This is a word of frequent occurrence in our earlier poets. Langland says of our Lord, there was

No man so worthie To be kaiser or king Of the kyngdom of Juda.

Again, he finely says—

Death cam dryvynge after, And al to duste passed Kynges and knyghtes, Kaysers and popes, Lered and lewed.[156]

This surname, too, is now all but equally common with the other, being met with in the several shapes of ‘Cæsar,’ ‘Cayser,’ ‘Cayzer,’ ‘Kaiser,’ and ‘Keyser.’[157] The name of ‘Julius Cæsar,’ as that of one of our most esteemed professional cricketers, has only just disappeared from the annals of that noble game. The posterity of such enrolled burgesses as ‘William le Kyng’ or ‘Thomas le Kyng’ still flourish and abound in our midst. An imperious temperament would thus readily meet with good-humoured censure. ‘Matilda le Quen’ or ‘Simon Quene’ has not quite failed of issue; but had it been otherwise, it could not have been matter for any astonishment, as the sobriquet was doubtless anything but a complimentary affix. We must remember that, somewhat curiously, the old ‘quen,’ or, as the Scotch still term it, ‘quean,’ at once represents the highest rank to which a woman can reach and the lowest depth to which she can fall. So would it be once more with our endless ‘Princes,’ and ‘Comtes’ or ‘Counts,’ ‘Viscuntes,’ the heads of provincial government.[158] There is no reason, however, why our ‘Dukes,’ ‘Dooks,’ or ‘Ducs,’ as they are more generally found in our rolls (‘Roger le Duc,’ E., ‘Adam le Duk.’ M.),[159] should not be what they represent, or rather then represented. A ‘duke’ was of course anything but what we now understand by the term, being then, as it more literally signifies, a leader, or chieftain, or head. It is thus used in Scripture. Langland, to quote him again, says of Justice—

A-drad was he nevere Neither of duc ne of deeth.

Elsewhere, too, he describes ‘Rex Gloriæ’ as addressing Lucifer upon the brink of Hades, and saying—

Dukes of this dymme place, Anoon undo these yates, That Crist may come in, The kynges sone of hevene.

It is in this same category we must set, I doubt not, such old registrations as ‘Robert le Baron’ or ‘Walter le Baron,’ ‘John le Lorde’ or ‘Walter le Loverd,’ and ‘Walter le Theyn’ or ‘Nicholas le Then,’ names now found as ‘Baron,’ ‘Lord,’ and ‘Thain,’ ‘Thaine,’ or ‘Thane.’[160] Even in the case of names of a more ecclesiastic character, we shall have to apply the same remark. We have still in our midst descendants of the ‘le Cardinals’ and ‘le Bishops’ of the thirteenth century, and there can be little doubt that these were, in the majority of cases, but nicknames given to particular individuals by way of ridiculing certain characteristics which seemed to tend in the direction the name suggested.

As I have already hinted, however, there is another and equally probable origin for many of the names I have mentioned. Pageantries and mock ceremonies were at this time at the very height of their popularity. The Romish Church fed this desire. Thus, for instance, take Epiphany. In well-nigh every parish the visit of the Magi, always accounted to have been royal personages, was regularly celebrated. Though the manner varied in different places, the custom was more or less the same. There was a great feast, and one of the company was always elected king, the rest being, according to the lots they drew, either ministers of state or maids of honour. Thus Herrick says—

For sports, for pageantrie, and playes, Thou hast thy eves and holidayes: Thy wakes, thy quintels, here thou hast, Thy Maypoles, too, with garlandes graced: Thy mummeries, thy twelfe-tide kings And queens, thy Christmas revellings.[161]

I need scarcely say that as popular nicknames these titles would be sure to cling to the persons upon whom they had fallen, and that they should even pass on to their descendants is no more unnatural than in the case of a hundred other sobriquets we shall have occasion to recount.

Of the rest, however, and, as I have said, maybe in some of the cases I have mentioned, the surname was but truly indicative of the office or dignity held. The Saxon has suffered here. And yet to some this may seem somewhat strange when we remember how little change really took place in the institutions of the Kingdom by the Conquest. The Normans and Saxons, after all, were but propagations from the same original stock, and however distant the period of their separation, however affected by difference of clime and association, still their customs bore a sufficient affinity to make coalescence by no means a difficult task. William was not given to great changes. He was vindictive, but not destructive. His most cruel acts were retributive, done by way of reprisal after sudden disaffection. If a conqueror must establish his power, deeds of this kind are inevitable. And even these are exaggerated. The story of the depopulation of the New Forest, it is now pretty generally agreed, is impossible—its present condition forbids of any such act to have been practicable—and the notion frequently conveyed in our smaller books of English history, that the curfew was a badge and token of servitude, is simply absurd, the fact being that the same custom prevailed over the whole of Western Europe, as a mere precaution against fire at a time when our towns were mainly constructed of wood. A crushed people will always misinterpret such ordinances. Prejudice of this kind is perfectly pardonable. William then, I say, was not inclined to uproot Saxon institutions. The national council still remained. The ancient tribunals with their various motes, the whole system of law which guided the administration of justice, all was well-nigh as it had been heretofore. But the language which was the medium of all this was generally changed. The old laws were indeed used, but in a translated form—old officerships still existed, but in a new dialect—the old policy was mainly upheld, but new terms of police were introduced. It was not till Edward III.’s reign that pleadings in the various courts were again carried on in the English tongue—it was not till Henry VI.’s reign the proceedings in Parliament were recorded in the people’s dialect—not till Richard III.’s day its statutes and ordinances ceased to be indited in Norman-French. This at once shows the difficulty of any officership, however Saxon, retaining its original title. The office was maintained, but the name was changed. This was the more certain to ensue, so far as the Church was concerned, from the fact that for a considerable period all ecclesiastic vacancies were filled up from abroad. Bishops and abbots were removed on pretexts of one sort or another, and their places supplied from the Conqueror’s chaplains. The monasteries were hived with Normans; the clergy generally were of foreign descent. It was the same, or nearly the same, with regard to civil government. The lesser courts of judicature were ruled by foreigners and the foreign tongue. The Barons, as they retired into the provinces and to the estates allotted them, naturally bore with them a Norman retinue. All their surroundings became quickly the same. Thus the French language was used not merely in their common conversation—that of course—but so far as their power, undoubtedly large, existed, in the provincial courts also.

Such entries as ‘Thomas le Shirreve’ and ‘Lena le Shireve’ remind us not merely of our present existing ‘Sheriffs,’ ‘Sherrifs,’ and ‘Shreeves,’ but how firmly this Saxon word has maintained its hold through the many fluctuations of English government. The Norman ‘Judge,’ though it is firmly established in our courts of law, has not made any very great impress upon our nomenclature. ‘Justice,’ a relic of ‘William’ or ‘Eva le Justice,’[162] is more commonly met with. Our ‘Corners,’ when not descendants of the local ‘de la Corners’ of the thirteenth century, are but corruptions of many a ‘John le Coroner’ or ‘Henry le Corouner’ of the same period. It is even found in the abbreviated form of ‘Corner,’ in ‘John le Corner’ and ‘Walter le Cornur.’ Thus we see that so early as this our forefathers discerned in the death of a subject a matter that concerned not merely the well-being of the crown, but that of which the crown as the true parent of a nation’s interests was to take cognizance. More directly opposed to the Norman ‘Judge’ and ‘Justice,’ and in the end displaced by them, were our Saxon ‘Demer’ and ‘Dempster’ (the older forms being ‘le Demere’ and ‘le Demester’), they who pronounced the doom. An old English Psalter thus translates Psalm cxlviii. 11:—

Kinges of earth, and alle folk living, Princes and all demers of land.

An antique poem, too, has it in its other form in the following couplet:—

Ayoth was then demester Of Israel foure score yeer.

We still employ the term ‘doom’ for judgment. Chaucer speaks familiarly of one of the Canterbury company as a ‘Serjeant of the Lawe.’ It is, in the majority of cases, to the term ‘sergeant’ as used in this capacity we owe our much-varied ‘Sargants,’ ‘Sargeants,’ ‘Sargeaunts,’ ‘Sargents,’ ‘Sergents,’ ‘Sergeants,’ ‘Sarjants,’ and ‘Sarjeants.’ The same poet says of him:—

Justice he was full often in assize, By patent and by pleine commission.

‘Alured le Pledur,’ or ‘Henry le Pleidour,’ and ‘Peter le Escuzer,’ all obsolete as surnames, need little or no explanation. Speaking of assizes, we are reminded of our ‘Sisers’ and ‘Sizers,’ representatives of the old ‘Assizer’—he who was commissioned to hold the court. Piers Plowman frequently mentions him:—

To marien this mayde Were many men assembled, As of knyghts, and of clerkes, And other commune people, As sisours, and somenours, Sherreves, and baillifs.

We are here reminded of ‘Hugh le Somenur,’ or ‘Henry le Sumenour,’ now spelt ‘Sumner,’ the sheriff’s messenger, he by whom the delinquent was brought up to the court. He was the modern apparitor in fact. In the ‘Coventry Mysteries’ it is said:—

Sim Somnor, in haste wend thou thi way, Byd Joseph, and his wyff by name, At the coorte to apper this day, Him to purge of her defame.

A ‘Godwin Bedellus’ occurs so early as Domesday record, and as ‘Roger le Bedel,’ or ‘Martin le Bedel,’ the name is by no means rare somewhat later on. He was, whether in the forest or any other court, the servitor, he who executed processes or attended to proclamations. The modern forms of the name comprise, among others, ‘Beadell,’ ‘Beadle,’ ‘Beaddall,’ and ‘Biddle.’ Such names as ‘Richard le Gayeler’ or ‘Ada le Gaoler,’ are very commonly met with in our mediæval rolls. The term itself is of Norman origin, reminding us that, however menial the duty, the Saxon could not be entrusted with such an office as this. We cannot, however, speak of the gaoler and his confrères without referring to a curious sobriquet of this period, a sobriquet to which we owe in the present day our ‘Catchpoles’ and ‘Catchpooles.’[163] The catchpole was a kind of under-bailiff or petty sergeant who distrained for debt, or otherwise did the more unpleasant part of his superior’s work, and was so called from his habit of seizing his luckless victim by the hair, or poll, as was the familiar term then. So general was this nickname that we find it occupying an all but official place. It is Latinized in our records into ‘cachepollus,’ a word unknown to Cicero, I am afraid. In the ‘Plowman’s Vision’ we are told of the two thieves crucified with the Saviour that:—

A cachepol cam forth And cracked both their legges.

Another name for the catchpole was that of ‘Cacherel’ or ‘Cacher,’ both of which forms occur at this same period as surnames. An old political song says, murmuringly:—

Nedes I must spend that I spared of yore Ageyn this cacherele cometh.

This sobriquet also abides with us still.[164] ‘Le Cacher,’ I fear, has been obsolete for centuries.[165]

Of such as were accountable for duties in the public streets, we may mention first our ‘Cryers,’ registered at the time we are speaking of as ‘Philip le Criour,’ or ‘Wat le Creyer.’ He, like the still existing ‘Bellman,’[166] performed a fixed round, announcing in full and sententious tones the mandates of bench and council, whenever it was necessary to advertise to the public such news as concerned their common well-being. Our policeman may be modern in his name and in his attire, but as the guardian of the peace, by night as well as by day, he is but the descendant of a long line of servants who have in turn fulfilled this important public trust. His early title was borne by ‘Ralph le Weyte,’ or ‘Robert le Wayte,’ or ‘Hugh le Geyt,’ or ‘Robert le Gait.’ All these forms are of the commonest occurrence in our olden registries. By night he carried a trump, with which to sound the watches or give the alarm, and thus it was he acquired also the name of ‘Trumper,’ such forms as ‘Adam le Trompour’ or ‘William le Trompour’ being frequently met with at this time. To the former title of this official duty it is we owe the fact of our still terming any company of night serenaders ‘waits,’ and especially those bands of strolling minstrels who keep up the good old custom of watching in Christmas morn. A good old custom, I say, even though it may cost us a few pence and rouse us somewhat rudely, maybe, from our slumbers. ‘Wait,’ ‘Waite,’[167] ‘Wayt,’ and ‘Whaite,’ with ‘le Geyt,’ are the forms that still exist among us. ‘Trumper,’ too, has its place equally assured in our nomenclature.

Such names as we have just dwelt upon, however, remind us of other municipal authorities, higher in position than these, to whom, indeed, these were but servitors. A sobriquet like ‘Richard le Burgess’ or ‘John le Burges’ reminds us of the freemen of the borough towns, while ‘le Mayor,’ or ‘Mayer,’ or ‘Maire,’ or ‘Mair,’ or ‘Meyre,’[168] or ‘Mire,’ for all these different spellings are found, is equally suggestive of the chief magistracy of such. Piers, to quote him once more, speaks of:—

The maistres, Meirs and Jugges, That have the welthe of this world.

The feminine form of this sobriquet appears in the early but obsolete ‘Margaret la Miresse.’ Speaking of mayors, some lines written some years ago on the proposed elevation of a certain Alderman Wood as Lord Mayor are not without humour, nor out of place, perhaps, here:—

In choice of Mayors ’twill be confest, Our citizens are prone to jest: Of late a gentle ‘Flower’ they tried— November came and checked its pride. A ‘Hunter’ next, on palfrey grey, Proudly pranced his year away. The next, good order’s foes to scare, Placed ‘Birch’ upon the civic chair. Alas! this year, ’tis understood, They mean to make a mayor of ‘Wood!’

As a fellow to ‘Meir’ we may cite ‘Provost,’ or ‘Prevost,’ or ‘Provis,’ a term still used of the mayoralty in Scotland. ‘Councellor’ and ‘Councilman’ are still familiar terms in our midst. ‘Clavenger,’ ‘Claver,’ and ‘Cleaver’ we will mention last as filling up a list of civic offices entirely, so far as the language is concerned, the property of the dominant power. A ‘Robert Clavynger’ occurs in the Parliamentary Rolls. Its root is ‘claviger,’ the key-bearer,’ one whose office it was at this time to protect the deposits, whether of money or parchments, belonging to the civic authorities. The more common term was that of ‘Clavier,’ such entries as ‘Henry le Claver,’ or ‘John le Clavour,’ or ‘John le Clavier,’[169] being of familiar occurrence at this time. Thus in a treaty agreed upon between the Mayor, sheriffs, and commonalty of Norwich in 1414, it was declared that ‘the mayor and twenty-four (of the council) shall choose a common clerk, a coroner, two clavers, and eight constables, and the sixty common council shall choose a common speaker, one coroner, two clavers, and eight constables.’ (‘Hist. Norf.,’ Blomefield.) In a day when there were no patent safes we can readily understand the importance of appointing men whose one care it was to guard the chests wherein were stored up the various parchments, moneys, and seals belonging to the civic council. This comprises our list of Norman civil officers. One name, and one only, of this class is Saxon, that of ‘Alderman,’ but I have found it occurring as a surname in only one or two instances, and I believe it has now become obsolete.

Turning from municipal to ecclesiastical affairs, we find the Church of mediæval times surrounded with memorials. Some of these I have already hinted at as being mere sobriquets;[170] none the less, however, do we owe them to the existing institutions. Such names as ‘Hugo le Archevesk’ or ‘William le Arceveske’ can be only thus viewed. In ‘Morte Arthure’ the hero holds festival at Caerleon,

Wyth dukez, and dusperes of dyvers rewmes, Erles and erchevesques, and other ynowe, Byschopes and bachelers and banerettes nobille.

While this has long vanished from our directories, the descendants of ‘John le Bissup’ or ‘Robert le Biscop’ are firmly established therein. The more Norman ‘Robert le Vecke’ and ‘Nicholas le Vesk’ still live also in our ‘Vicks’ and ‘Vecks.’ It was only the other day I saw ‘Archdeacon’ over a hatter’s shop—and that it is no corruption of some other word, we may cite the early ‘Thomas le Arcedekne’ as a proof.[171] Whether ‘Archpriest,’ a sobriquet occurring at the same date, was but another designation of the same, or performed more episcopal functions, I cannot say.[172] The name, however, is obsolete in every sense. The old vicar has bequeathed us our ‘Vicars,’ ‘Vicarys,’ and ‘Vickermans.’ Chaucer says in the ‘Persons Prologue’—

Sire preest, quod he, art thou a vicary? Or art thou a Person? say soth by thy fay.

Our ‘Parsons,’ as Mr. Lowther thinks, are but a form of ‘Piers’ son,’ that is, ‘Peters’ son.’ It is, however, quite possible for them to be what they more nearly resemble; indeed, I find the name occurring as such in the case of ‘Walter le Persone,’ found in the Parliamentary Rolls. Well would it be if we could say of each village cure now what our great early poet said of one he pictured forth—

A good man there was of religioun, That was a poure Persone of a town, But riche he was of holy thought and werk, He was also a lerned man, a clerk, That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche.

Our ‘Priests’ and ‘Priestmans’[173] answer for themselves. ‘Thomas le Prestre’ and ‘Peter le Prest,’ I do not doubt myself, were but other changes rung upon the same, but I shall have occasion hereafter to propose, at least, a different origin for the latter. The lower ministerial office is suggested to us in ‘Philip le Dekene’ and ‘Thomas le Deken,’ but we must be careful not to confound them with ‘Deakin,’ which is often but another form of ‘Dakin,’ that is, ‘Dawkin,’ or ‘little David.’[174] Our ‘Chaplains’ or ‘Chaplins,’ once written more fully as ‘Reginald le Chapeleine,’ represent less one who officiated in any public sanctuary than him who was attached to some private oratory belonging to one of the higher nobility. Our ‘Chanters’ or ‘Canters’ (‘Xtiana le Chauntour,’ A., ‘William le Chantour,’ M.) still maintain the dignity of the old precentors who led the collegiate or cathedral choir—but the once existing ‘Chanster’ (‘Stephen le Chanster,’ J.), strictly speaking the feminine of the other, is now obsolete.[175] In our ‘Chancellors’ we may recognise the ancient ‘John le Chanceler’ or ‘Geoffry le Chaunceler,’ he to whose care was committed the chapter, books, scrolls, records, and what other literature belonged to the establishment with which he stood connected. ‘Clerk’ as connected with the Church has come down in the world, for as ‘clericus,’ or ‘clergyman,’ it once belonged entirely to the ordained ministry.[176] The introduction of lay-clerks, appointed to lead the responses of the congregation, has, however, connected them all but wholly with this later office. Nor have our ‘Secretans,’ or ‘Sextons,’ or ‘Saxtons’ preserved their early dignity. The sacristan was he who had charge of the church-edifice, especially the robes and vestments, and such things as appertained to the actual service.[177] The present usually accepted meaning of the term, that understood by our great humorist poet when he said—

He went and told the sexton, And the sexton tolled the bell,

is quite of later growth. In our ‘Colets’ and ‘Collets’ (sometimes the diminutives of ‘Colin’) we are reminded of the colet, or acolyte, who waited upon the priest and assisted in carrying the bread and wine, in lighting the candles, and performing all subordinate duties. Our ‘Bennets,’ when not belonging to the class of baptismal names (as a corruption of ‘Benedict’), once performed the functions of exorcists, and by the imposition of hands and the aspersion of holy water expelled evil spirits from those said to be thus possessed. Last of this group we may mention our ‘Croziers’ and ‘Crosiers,’ they who at this time bore the pastoral staff. Mediæval forms of these are met with in ‘Simon le Croyzer’ or ‘Mabel la Croiser.’ I doubt not that he was a kind of chaplain to his superior, whose official staff it was his duty to bear. In the Book of Common Prayer of the 2nd year of Edward VI. it is directed: ‘Whensoever the bishop shall celebrate the holy communion, or execute any other public office, he shall have upon him, besides his rochet, an alb and cope, or vestment, and also his pastoral staff in his hand, or else borne by his chaplain.’

When we turn our eyes for a moment to the old monastic institutions, we see that they, too, are far from being without their relics. In them we have more distinctly the echo of a departed time. Many of my readers will be familiar with the distinction recorded in such names as ‘Alexander le Seculer’ and ‘Walter le Religieuse,’ or ‘man of religion,’ as Chaucer would have termed the latter. To be ‘religious’ in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was to be one of a monastic order bound by vows. Thus our great mediæval poet says in his Romance—

Religious folk ben full covert, Secular folke ben more apert, But natheless, I will not blame Religious folke, ne them defame In what habite that ever they go; Religion humble, and true also, Will I not blame, ne despise.

The ‘religieuse’ has apparently stuck to his vows, for I have never found the term in an hereditary form, while ‘Secular,’ as descended from such enrolled folk as ‘Walter le Secular,’ or ‘Joan, uxor Nicholas le Secular,’ still exists. I am afraid, however, the Secularist of that time could and would have told us a different tale. Of these bound orders too, while the general term, as I say, does not now exist surnominally, all the more particular titles which it embraced do. As we catch the cadence of their names a shadow falls athwart our memories, and in its wake a crowd of dim and unsubstantial figures pass before us. Once more we behold the fiery ‘Abbot’ (Juliana Abbot, A., Ralph le Abbe, C.), and the portly ‘Prior’ or ‘Pryor’ (Roger le Priour, B., William le Priur, E.). We see afresh the ‘Friar,’ or ‘Freere,’ or ‘Frere’ (Syward le Frere, A., Geoffrey le Frere, A.), so ‘pleasant of absolution’ and ‘easy of penance.’ Again our eye falls mistily upon the ‘Canon,’ or ‘Cannon’ (William le Cannon, A., Thomas le Canun, E.), with his well-trimmed beard and capped brow, and the ‘Moyne’ (now ‘Munn’) or ‘Monk’ (Beatrix le Munk, A., Thomas le Mun, A., Ivo le Moyne, A.), all closely shaved and cloaked, and cowled, that knew his way to the cellar better than to the chapel, who loved the song more than the chaunt.[178] And now in quick succession flit by us a train of personages all beshrouded in garbs of multitudinous and quaint aspect, in cloaks and hoods, and tippets and girdles, and white and dark apparel. There is the wimpled, grey-eyed ‘Nunn’ (Alice la Nonne, A.), and the Dorturer, represented in olden registers by such a name as ‘Robert le Dorturer,’ he who looked to the arrangements of the dourtour, or dormitory—

His death saw I by revelation, Sayde this frere, at home in our dortour.[179]

The word still existed in the sixteenth century, as is evidenced by Heywood’s use of it. He says—

The tongue is assigned of wordes to be sorter; The mouth is assigned to be the tongue’s dorter; The teeth are assigned to be the tongue’s porter; But wisdom is ’signed to tye the tongue shorter.

The figure is somewhat forced, but it has its beauty. The ‘Fermerer,’ now found as ‘Fermor’ and ‘Firmer,’ was he who superintended the infirmary. Only a few lines further on, in the earlier of the two poems from which I last quoted, we find Chaucer making mention of—

Our sexton, and our fermerere, That have been trewe freres fifty year.

The ‘Tale of a Monk,’ too, begins—

A black munk of an abbaye Was enfermer of alle I herd say— He was halden an hali man Imange his felaus.

The fermery was the hospital or ‘spital’[180] attached to each religious house, and was under the immediate control of the above-mentioned officer. It is with him, therefore, we may fitly ally ‘Robert le Almoner,’ or ‘Michael le Aumoner,’ a name still abiding with us, and representative of him who dispensed the alms to the lazars and the poor. It is in allusion to this his office that Robert Brunne in one of his tales says:—

Seynt Jone, the aumenere,[181] Saith Pers, was an okerere And was very coveytous And a niggard and avarus.

Of the same officer in more lordly society the ‘Boke of Curtasye’ thus speaks—

The Aumonere a rod schalle have in honde, An office for almes, I understonde; Alle the broken mete he kepys in wait To dele to pore men at the gate.

Many of those who were supported at this time and in this manner were lepers. We can take up no record, large or small, of the period without coming across a ‘Nicholas’ or ‘Walter le Leper.’ Leprosy was introduced into Western Europe with the return of the Crusaders. To such a degree had it spread in England, that in 1346 Edward III. was compelled to issue a royal mandate enjoining those ‘smitten with the blemish of leprosy’ to ‘betake themselves to places in the country, solitary, and notably distant’ from the dwellings of men. Such a distinctive designation as this would readily cling to a man, even after he had been cured of the disorder,[182] and no wonder that in our ‘Lepers’ and ‘Leppers’ the name still remains as but one more memorial of that noble madness which set Christendom ablaze some six centuries ago. A term used synonymously at this time with leper is found in such an entry as ‘Richard le Masele’ or ‘Richard le Masle,’ that is, ‘Measle.’ Wicklyffe has the word in the case of Naaman, and also of the Samaritan leper.[183] Langland speaks of those who are afflicted with various ailments, and adds that they, if they

Take these myschiefs meeklike, As mesels, and others, Han as pleyn pardon As the plowman hymselve.

Capgrave, too, to quote but one more instance, speaking of Deodatus, a Pope of the seventh century, says ‘He kissed a mysel and sodeynly the mysel was whole.’ Strange to say, this name also is not extinct. Our ‘Badmans’ are not so bad as they might seem. They, and our ‘Bidmans,’ are doubtless but corrupted forms of the old ‘bedeman,’ or ‘beadman,’ he who professionally invoked Heaven in behalf of his patron. It is hence we get our word ‘bead,’ our forefathers having been accustomed to score off the number of aves and paternosters they said by means of these small balls strung on a thread. This practice, I need not say, is still familiar to the Romish Church.

But we have not yet done with the traces of these more distant practices. The various religious wanderers or solitary recluses, though belonging to a system long faded from our English life, find a perpetual epitaph in the directories of to-day. Thus we have still our ‘Pilgrims,’ or ‘Pelerins’ (‘John Pelegrim,’ A., ‘William le Pelerin,’ E.), as the Normans termed them. We may meet with ‘Palmers’ (‘Hervey le Palmer,’ A., ‘John le Paumer,’ M.) any day in the streets of our large towns, names distinctly relating the manner in which their owners have derived their title. The pilgrim may have but visited the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury; the latter, as his sobriquet proves, had, forlorn and weary, battled against all difficulties, and trod the path that led to the Holy Sepulchre—

The faded palm-branch in his hand Showed pilgrim from the Holy Land.[184]

The ‘Pardoner,’ with his pouch choked to the full (‘Walter le Pardoner,’ M.) with saleable indulgences, had but come from Rome. He was an itinerant retailer of ecclesiastic forgivenesses, and was as much a quack as those who still impose upon the credulity of the bucolic mind by selling cheap medicines. As Chaucer says of him—

With feigned flattering and japes, He made the parson and the peple his apes.

‘Hermit’ I have failed to find as at present existing, though ‘Hermitage’ or ‘Armitage’ (‘John Harmaytayge,’ W. 3), as local names expressive of his abode, are by no means unfamiliar. Our ‘Anchors’ and ‘Ankers,’ however, still live to commemorate the old ancre or anchorite; he who, as his sobriquet implied, was wont to separate himself from the world’s vain pleasures and dwell in seclusion and solitude. In the ‘Romance of the Rose’ it is said—

Sometime I am religious, Now like an anker in an house.

Piers in his ‘Vision,’ too, speaks of—

Ancres and heremites That holden them in their celles.

‘Hugh le Eremite’ or ‘Silvester le Hermite’ are early forms of the one, while in the other case we find the aspirate added in ‘John le Haneker.’ The modern dress of this latter, however, presents the usual early and more correct spelling.[185] What a vision is presented for our notice in these various sobriquets. It is the vision of a day that has faded, a day with many gleams of redeeming light, but a day of ignorance and lethargy; a day which, after all, thank God, was but the precursor of the brighter day of the Reformation, when the Church, true to herself and true to her destiny, threw off the shackles and the fetters that bound her, and began a work which her greatest foes have been compelled to admit she carried through amid opposition of the deadliest and most crushing kind.

Before passing on to a survey of our feudal aristocracy, I may mention our ‘Latimers,’ or ‘le Latymer,’ as I find it recorded in early lists. A latinier, or latimer, was literally a speaker or writer of Latin, that language being then the vehicle of all record or transcript. Latin, indeed, for centuries was the common ground on which all European ecclesiastics met. Thus it became looked upon as the language of interpretation. The term I am speaking of, however, seems to have become general at an early stage. An old lyric says—

Lyare was mi latymer, Sloth and sleep mi bedyner.

Sir John Maundeville, describing an eastern route, says (I am quoting Mr. Lower)—‘And men alleweys fynden Latyneres to go with them in the contrees and furthere beyonde in to tyme that men conne the language.’ Teachers of the Latin tongue itself were not wanting. ‘Le Scholemayster’ existed so early as the twelfth century to show that there were those who professed to initiate our English youth in the rudiments of that which was a polite and liberal education in the eyes of that period. Such sobriquets as ‘le Gramayre,’ or ‘Gramary,’ or ‘Grammer,’ represented the same avocation, being nothing more than the old Norman ‘Gramaire,’ or ‘Grammarian’ as we should now call him, only we now apply the term to a philologist rather than a professional teacher. As ‘Grammar’ the surname is far from being obsolete in our midst. A ‘Nicholas le Lessoner’ is met with in the Hundred Rolls. He was evidently but a schoolmaster also. The verb ‘to lesson,’ i.e. to teach, is still in use in various parts of the country, and we find even Shakespeare using it. Clarence says to his murderer—

Bid Gloster think of this, and he will weep;

to which the murderer replies—

Ay, millstones; as he lessoned us to weep. (Richard III., act. i. sc. iii.)

In looking over the pages of our early Anglo-Norman history we are at once struck by the fact of the absence of any middle class; that important branch of our community which in after and more civilised ages has done so much for English liberty and English strength. The whole genius of the feudal constitution was opposed to this. There was indeed a graduating scale of feudal tenure which bound together and connected each community; but there was of equal surety in the chain of these independent links of society a certain ring where all alliance ceased save that of service, and which separated each provincial society into two widely-sundered classes. On the one side were the baron and his nearer feudatories and retainers; and below this, on the other, came under one common standard the villein, the peasant, and the boor, looked upon by their superiors with contemptuous indifference, and barely endured as necessary to the administration of their luxury and pleasure. We have already mentioned many of those who gave the baron support. Of other his vassals we may cite ‘le Vavasour,’ or ‘Valvasor,’ a kind of middle-class landowner. The lower orders of chivalry have left us in our many ‘Knights’[186] and ‘Bachelors’ or ‘Backlers’ a plentiful token of former importance. Our ‘Squiers,’ ‘Squires,’ ‘Swiers,’ or ‘Swires’[187] carry us, as does the now meaningless Esquire, to the time when the sons of those ‘Knights’ bore, as the name implies, their shields. By the time of Henry VI., however, it had become adopted by the heirs of the higher gentry, and now it is used indiscriminately enough. Those who are so surnamed may comfort themselves at any rate with the reflection that they are lineally descended from those who bore the name when it was an honourable and distinctive title. ‘Armiger,’ the form in which the word was oftentimes recorded in our Latin rolls, still survives, though barely, in our ‘Armingers,’ this corrupted form being in perfect harmony with all similar instances, as we shall see almost immediately. One of our mediæval rhymes speaks of—

Ten thousand knights stout and fers, Withouten hobelers and squyers.

These hobelers are far from being uninteresting. When we talk of riding a hobby, we little think what a history is concealed beneath the term. A hobiler[188] in the days we are speaking of, was one who held by tenure of maintaining a hobbie—a kind of small horse, then familiarly so known. A song on the times, written in the fourteenth century, and complaining of the manner in which the upper classes plundered the poor, says:—

And those hoblurs, namelich, That husband benimeth eri of ground, Men ne should them bury in none chirch, But cast them out as a hound.

Later on, by its fictitious representation in the Morris dances of the May-day sports, the hobby came to denote the mere dummy, and now as such affords much scope for equestrian skill in the Rotten Row of our nurseries. What tricks time plays with these words, to be sure, and what a connexion for our ‘Hoblers’ and ‘Hobblers’ to meditate upon. Our ‘Bannermans’ are Scotch, but they represent an office, whether in England or the North, whose importance it would be hard to estimate at this period. Nor are we without traces in our nomenclature of its existence in more southern districts. Our not unfamiliar ‘Pennigers’ and ‘Pennigars’ are but the former official pennager, he who bore the ensign or standard of his lord. They figure even in more general and festive pageants. In the York Procession we find walking alone and between the different craftsmen the ‘Pennagers.’ Probably they bore the ensigns of that then important corporate city. I have but recently referred to ‘Robert Clavynger’ (H.) and the probability of his having carried the club or mace or key of his superiors in office. All or well-nigh all the above names find themselves well represented in the registers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Our eye falls at once on an ‘Andrew le Gramary,’ a ‘Richard le Gramayre,’ a ‘Thomas le Skolmayster,’ a ‘Warin le Latimer,’ a ‘William le Latiner,’ a ‘Jordan le Vavasur,’ a ‘Simon le Knyt,’ a ‘Gilbert le Bacholer,’ a ‘Walter le Squier,’ or a ‘Nicholas Armiger.’

A curious relic of the military tactics of mediæval times is presented to our notice in our ‘Reuters,’ ‘Ritters,’ and ‘Rutters.’ The old English forms are found in such entries as ‘Thomas le Reuter,’ or ‘Ranulph le Ruter.’ The root of the term is probably the German ritter, or rider, a name given at this period to certain mercenary soldiers oftentimes hired by our English sovereigns out of Brabant and the surrounding country. Thus we find William of Newburgh, under the date 1173, saying that Henry II. ‘stipendarias Bribantionum copias, quas Rutas vocant, accersivit.’ (Lib. ii. cap. 27.) Trivet, relating the same fact, says (p. 73), ‘Conduxit Brabanzones et Rutarios.’[189] An old song begins—

Rutterkyn is come into owre towne, In a cloke withoute cote or gowne, Save a raggid hood to kover his crowne Like a rutter hoyda. Rutterkyn can speke no Englyssh, His tonge runneth all on buttyrd fyssh, Besmeared with grece abowte his disshe, Like a rutter hoyda.

The nickname ‘rutterkin’ proves the Flemish origin of these troopers. Their capacity for stowing away food and drink, from all accounts, is not exaggerated in the poem from which the above is an extract. We have just mentioned our ‘Bachelors,’ and this reminds us of our ‘Childs,’ and of the days of chivalry. The term ‘child’ was a distinctly honourable title in the olden times. It was borne by the sons of all the higher nobility; if by the eldest son, then in right of his title to his father’s honours and possessions; if more generally by others, then until by some deed of prowess they had been raised to the ranks of knighthood. In either case ‘child’ was the term in use during this probationary state. Thus Byron in his ‘Childe Harold’ has but revived the ‘Childe Waters,’ ‘Childe Rolands,’ and ‘Childe Thopas’s’ of earlier times.[190] We owe many existing and several obsolete surnames to this custom. Our ‘Childs’ are but descendants of such a sobriquet as ‘Ralph le Child;’ our ‘Eyres’ of such an entry as ‘William le Eyre;’ some of our ‘Barnes’ may be but the offspring of such a personage as ‘Thomas le Barne’ (now ‘bairn,’ that is, the born one); while ‘Stephen le Enfant’ or ‘Walter le Enfaunt’ represents an appellation that is now obsolete in England.[191] I need scarcely add that this last, in the form of Infante and Infanta, still bears the same meaning in the royal families of Spain that Child did in our own land in more chivalric days.

The details of early feudal life are wonderfully depicted by our nomenclature. Owing to the boundless and forced ceremony which arose out of the prevailing spirit of feudal pride, our official memorials are well-nigh overwhelming. Feudal tenure itself became associated with office, and none seemed too servile for acceptance. As has been said of Charlemagne’s Court, so might it be said of those of others—‘they were crowded with officers of every rank, some of the most eminent of whom exercised functions about the royal person which would have been thought fit only for slaves in the palace of Augustus or Antonine’—‘to carry his banner or his lance, to lead his array, to be his marshall, or constable, or sewer, or carver, to do in fact such services, trivial or otherwise, as his lord might have done himself, in proper person, had it so pleased him—this was the position coveted by youths of birth and distinction at such a period as this.’ Many of these officerships, or the bare titles, still linger round the court of our sovereign. The higher feudatories, of course, followed the example thus set them by their suzerain, and the lesser barons these, and thus household officers sprang up on every side. See how this has left its mark upon our surnames. ‘John le Conestable,’ or ‘Robert le Constable,’ I need not say, is still well represented. In the ‘Man of Lawes Tale’ the poet says:—

The constable of the castel doun is fare To see this wreck.

With him we may ally our not unfamiliar ‘Castlemans,’ ‘Castelans,’ and ‘Chatelains,’ representatives of the old ‘John le Chastilioun,’ or ‘Joscelin le Castelan,’ or ‘Ralph le Chatelaine.’ The poet whom I have just quoted says elsewhere:—

Now am I king, now chastelaine.

Doubtless this latter was but a synonym of the constable, and his duties as governor but the same. Of decidedly lower position, but not dissimilar in character, we have also ‘Wybert le Portere,’ or ‘Portarius,’ as he is Latinized in our rolls. An old book of etiquette says:—

When thou comes to a lordis gate The porter thou shalle fynde therate.

He at the postern would as carefully look against hostile, as our former ‘Peter le Ussher,’ or ‘Alan le Usser,’ within would against informal approach.[192] The Saxon form, however, was evidently not wanting, for we have still ‘Doorward’ and ‘Doorman’ (‘Geoffrey le Doreward,’ A., ‘Nicholas le Doreman,’ O.) in our directories, not to mention their corrupted, ‘Durwards,’ immortalized by Walter Scott, and ‘Dormans’ and ‘Domans.’ The term ‘doorward’ is found in many of our early writers. Thus in an old metrical account of the bringing of Christ before Caiaphas, it is said of John when he returned to fetch in Peter:—

He bid the dureward Let in his fere.

Our ‘Chamberlaynes’ and ‘Chambers,’[193] (‘Simon le Chamberlain,’ M., ‘Henry le Chaumberleyne,’ B., ‘William de la Chaumbre,’ B.) had access to their lord’s inner privacy, and from their intimacy with his monetary affairs occupied a position at times similar to that of our more collegiate bursar. We have only to look at mediæval costume, its grandeur, its colours, and its varied array, to understand how necessary there should be a special officer to superintend his lord’s wardrobe. Our ‘Wardrops’ are but the former ‘de la Wardrobe,’ or ‘de la Garderoba,’ while ‘le Wardrober,’ or ‘le Garderober,’ has bequeathed us our ‘Wardropers.’ Thus the ‘Book of Curtasye’ says:—

The usshere shalle bydde the wardropere Make redy for alle, night before they fere.

Equally important as an attendant was the ‘Barbour.’ He especially was on familiar terms with his master—when was he not? I need scarcely say that among his other duties that of acting as surgeon in the household was none of the lightest. Still his tonsorial capacity was his first one. No one then thought of shaving himself, least of all the baron. Even so late as the sixteenth century a writer defending the use of the beard against Andrew Boorde employs this argument:—

But, syre, I praye you, if you tell can, Declare to me, when God made man (I meane by our forefather Adam), Whether that he had a berde then; And if he had, who did hym shave, Since that a barber he could not have.

I have no doubt it is here we must set our ‘Simisters,’ relics, as they probably are, of such a name as ‘John Somayster,’ or ‘William Summister.’ The summaster seems from its orthography to have represented one who acted as a clerk or comptroller, something akin to the chamberlain or breviter, whom I shall mention almost immediately; one, in fact, who cast up and certified accounts. Holinshed used the word as if in his day it were of familiar import. Dwelling upon a certain event, he says—‘Over this, if the historian be long, he is accompted a trifler; if he be short, he is taken for a summister.’[194]

In such days as those, what with the number of personal retainers and the excess of hospitality expected of the feudal chief, the culinary department occupied far from an insignificant position in regard to the general accessories of the baronial establishment. Our ‘Cooks,’ or ‘Cokes,’ or ‘Cookmans,’ relics of the old ‘Roger le Coke,’ or ‘Joan le Cook,’ or ‘William Cokeman,’ even then ruled supreme over that most absolute of all monarchies, the kitchen; our ‘Kitchenmans’ (now found also as ‘Kitchingham’), ‘Kitcheners,’ and ‘Kitchens,’ or ‘de la Kitchens,’ as they were once written, reminding us who it was that aided them to turn the spit or handle the posnet. Our ‘Pottingers’ represent the once common ‘Robert le Potager,’ or ‘Walter le Potager,’ the soup-maker. Potage was the ordinary term for soup, thickened well with vegetables and meat.[195] Thus in the ‘Boke of Curtasye’ the guest is bid—

Suppe not with grete sowndynge, Neither potage ne other thynge—

a rule which still holds good in society. We are well aware of the ingredients of the dish which our Bible translators have still bequeathed to us as ‘a mess of potage.’ In its present corrupted form of ‘porridge’ this notion of a mess rather than of a soup is still preserved. Another interesting servitorship of this class has well-nigh escaped our notice—that of the hastiler: he who turned the haste or spit. In the Close Rolls we find a ‘Thurstan le Hastler’ recorded, and in the Parliamentary Writs such names as ‘Henry Hastiler’ and ‘William Hastiler.’ In the will of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Essex, among other household servants, such as potager, ferour, barber, ewer, is mentioned ‘William de Barton, hastiler.’ I need not remind Lancashire people that a haister, or haster, is still the term used for the tin screen employed for roasting purposes. The memorials of this interesting servitorship still linger on in our ‘Hastlers,’ ‘Haslers,’ and ‘Haselers.’ If, however, the supervision of the roasting and basting required an attendant, none the less was it so with the washing-up department. How familiarly does such a term as ‘scullery’ fall from our lips, and how little do many of us know of its history. An escuelle[196] was a porringer or dish, and a scullery was a place where such vessels were stored after being washed.[197] Hence a ‘squiller’ or ‘squyler’ was he who looked to this; our modern ‘scullion,’ in fact, which is but a corrupted form of the same word. In one of Robert of Brunne’s poems, we find him saying—

And the squyler of the kechyn, Piers, that hath woned (dwelt) here yn.[198]

In a book of ‘Ordinances and Regulations’ we find mention made even of a ‘sergeant-squylloure.’ Doubtless his duty was to look after the carriage of utensils at such times as his lord made any extended journey, or to superintend the washing of cup and platter after the open-board festivities which were the custom of early baronial establishments. To provide for every retainer who chanced to come in would be, indeed, a care. The occurrence of a ‘Roger de Norhamtone, Squyler,’ however, in the London City rolls, seems to imply that occasionally the sale of such vessels gave the title. I cannot say the name is obsolete, as I have met with one ‘Squiller;’ and ‘Skiller,’ which would seem to be a natural corruption, is not uncommon. Our ‘Spencers,’ abbreviated from ‘despencer,’ had an important charge—that of the ‘buttery,’ or ‘spence,’ the place where the household store was kept. The term is still in use, I believe, in our country farm-houses. In the ‘Sumner’s Tale’ the glutton is well described as—

All vinolent as botel in the spence;

and Mr. Halliwell, I see, with his wonted research, has lighted on the following lines:—

Yet I had lever she and I Were both togyther secretly In some corner in the spence.[199]

‘De la Spence,’ as well as ‘le Spencer,’ has impressed itself upon our living nomenclature. Our ‘Panters,’ ‘Pantlers,’ and ferocious-seeming ‘Panthers,’ descendants of such folk as ‘Richard le Panter,’ or ‘Robert le Paneter,’ or ‘Henry de le Paneterie,’ are but relics of a similar office. They had the superintendence of the ‘paneterie,’ or pantry; literally, of course, the bread closet. It seems, however, early to have become used in a wider and more general sense. In the Household Ordinances of Edward IV. one of the sergeants is styled ‘the chief Pantrer of the King’s mouth.’ John Russel in his ‘Boke of Nurture’ thus directs his student—

The furst yere, my son, thou shalt be pantere or buttilare, Thou must have three knyffes kene in pantry, I sey thee, evermare, One knyfe the loaves to choppe, another them for to pare, The third, sharp and kene, to smothe the trenchers and square.[200]

Of the old ‘Achatour’ (found as ‘Henry le Catour’ or ‘Bernard le Acatour’), the purveyor for the establishment, we have many memorials, those of ‘Cater,’ ‘Cator,’ and ‘Caterer’ being the commonest. Chaucer quaintly remarks of the ‘Manciple,’[201] who was so

Wise in buying of victuals,

that of him

Achatours mighten take ensample.

The provisions thus purchased were called ‘cates,’ a favourite word with some of our later poets. Equivalent to the more monastic ‘le Cellarer,’[202] which is now obsolete, are our numberless ‘Butlers,’ the most accepted form of the endless ‘Teobald le Botilers,’ ‘Richer le Botillers,’ ‘Ralph le Botelers,’ ‘William le Botellers,’ ‘Walter le Butillers,’ or ‘Hugh le Buteilliers,’ of this time. As we shall observe by-and-by, however, this was also an occupative name.[203]

With so many officers to look after the preparations, we should expect the dinner itself to be somewhat ceremonious. And so it was—far more ceremonious, however, than elegant in the light of the nineteenth century. Our ‘Senechals’ and ‘Senecals’ (‘Alexander le Seneschal,’ B., ‘Ivo Seneschallus,’ T.), relics of the ancient ‘seneschal,’ Latinized in our records as ‘Dapifer’ (‘Henry Dapifer,’ A.), arranged the table. The root of this word is the Saxon ‘schalk,’ a servant which, though now wholly obsolete, seems to have been in familiar use in early times.[204] An old poem tells us—

Then the schalkes sharply shift their horses, To show them seemly in their sheen weeds.

In ‘Sir Gawayne,’ too, the attendant is thus described—

Clene spurs under Of bright golde, upon silk bordes, barred full rich, And scholes (depending) under shanks, there the schalk rides.

We are not without traces of its existence in other compounds. Thus our ‘Marshalls’ were originally ‘marechals;’ that is, ‘mare-schalks,’ the early name for a horse-groom or blacksmith. The Marshall, however, was early turned into an indoor office, and seems to have been busied enough in ordering the position of guests in the hall, a very punctilious affair in those days. The ‘Boke of Curtasye’ says:—

In halle marshalle alle men schalle sett, After their degre, withouten lett.

Our ‘Gateschales,’ a name now altogether obsolete, were the more simple porter, while our ‘Gottschalks,’ a surname more frequently hailing from Germany, but once common with ourselves as a Christian name, denote simply ‘God’s servant.’ But we are wandering. Let us come back to the dinner-table. Such sobriquets as ‘Ralph le Suur’[205] or ‘John le Sewer’ remind us of the sewer—he who brought in the viands.[206] A sewe, from the old French sevre, to follow, was any cooked dish, and thus is simply equivalent to our course. Chaucer, in describing the rich feasts of Cambuscan, King of Tartary, says the time would fail him to tell—

Of their strange sewes.

I believe the Queen’s household still boasts its four gentlemen sewers. As a surname, too, the word is still common. A curious custom presents itself to our remembrance in our ‘Says,’ who, when not of the ‘de Says’ (‘Hugh de Say,’ A.), are but descendants of the ‘le Says’ (‘John le Say,’ M.) of the Hundred Rolls. An ‘assay’ or ‘say’ was he who assayed or tasted the messes as they were set one by one before the baron, to guard against his being accidentally or purposely poisoned. An old poem uses the fuller form, where it says—

Thine assayer schalle be an hownde, To assaye thy mete before thee.

In the ‘Boke of Curtasye,’ too, we are told to what ranks this privilege belonged—

No mete for man schalle sayed be, But for kynge, or prynce, or duke so fre.[207]

Another term for the same made its mark upon our nomenclature as ‘Gustur’ (‘Robert le Gustur,’ T.) To gust was thus used till Shakespeare’s day, and we still speak of ‘gusto’ as equivalent to relish.

We are reminded by the fact of the existence of ‘Knifesmith’ and ‘Spooner’ only among our early occupative surnames that there were no forks in those days.[208] There is no ‘Forker’ to be found. Even the ‘Carver’ (‘Adam le Kerver,’ A., ‘Richard le Karver,’ A.) had to use his fingers. In the ‘Boke of Kervynge,’ a manual of the then strictest etiquette in such matters, we find the following direction:—‘Set never on fyshe, flesche, beest, ne fowle, more than two fyngers and a thombe.’ Seldom, too, did they use plates as we now understand them. Before each guest was set a round slice of bread called a trencher, and the meat being placed upon this, he consumed the whole, or as much as he pleased. Under these circumstances we can easily understand how necessary would be the office of ‘Ewer,’ a name found in every early roll as ‘Brian le Ewer,’ or ‘Richard le Ewere,’ or ‘Adam de la Euerie.’ As he supplied water for each to cleanse his hands he was close followed by the ‘napper’ or ‘napier,’ who proffered the towel or napkin. The word, I need scarcely say, is but a diminutive of the old nape, which was applied in general to the tablecloths and other linen used in setting forth the dinner. An old book, which I have already quoted, in directing the attendant how to lay the cloth, says—

The over nape schall double be layde.

The Hundred Rolls and other records furnish us with such names as ‘Jordan le Nappere,’ or ‘John le Napere,’ or ‘Walter de la Naperye.’ Behind the lord of the board, nigh to his elbow, stood the ‘page,’ holding his cup. This seems to have been an office much sought after by the sons of the lower nobility, and it is to the honourable place in which it was held we no doubt owe the fact that not merely are our ‘Pages’ decidedly numerous in the present day, but that we also find such further particular compounds as ‘Small-page,’[209] ‘Little-page,’ or ‘Cup-page’ holding anything but a precarious existence in our midst. There seems to have been but little difference between this office and that of the ‘henchman,’ only that the latter, as his name, more strictly written ‘haunchman,’ shows, attended his master’s behests out of doors. He, too, lives on hale and hearty in our ‘Henchmans,’ ‘Hinxmans,’ ‘Hincksmans,’ and ‘Hensmans.’[210]

In several of our early records of names we find ‘Peter le Folle,’ ‘Alexander le Fol,’ and ‘Johannes Stultus’ appearing in apparently honest and decent company. The old fool or jester was an important entity in the retinue of the mediæval noble. He could at least say, if he might not do, what he liked, and I am afraid the more ribald his buffoonery the greater claim he possessed to be an adept in his profession in the eyes of those who heard him. His dress was always in character with his duties, being as uncouth as fashion reversed could make it. In his hand he bore a mock rod of state, his head was surmounted by a huge cap peaked at the summit and surrounded with little jingling bells, his dress was in colour as conflicting as possible, and the tout ensemble I need not dwell upon. We still talk of a ‘foolscap,’ and even our paper has preserved the term from the fact that one of the earliest watermarks we have was that of a fool’s cap with bells. ‘Fools,’ I need not say, wherever else to be met with, are now obsolete so far as our directories are concerned.

I have just mentioned the henchman. This at once carries us without the baronial walls, and in whatever scene we are wont to regard the early suzeraine as engaging, it is remarkable how fully marked is our nomenclature with its surroundings. Several useful servitorships, however, claim our first attention. In such days as these, when the telegraph wire was an undreamt-of mystery, and highways traversed by steam-engines would have been looked upon as something supernatural indeed, we can readily understand the importance of the official ‘Roger le Messager,’ or ‘John le Messager,’ nor need we be surprised by the frequency with which he is met. In the ‘Man of Lawes Tale’ it is said—

This messager to don his avantage Unto the Kinges mother rideth swift.

Though generally found as ‘Messinger’ or ‘Massinger,’ the truer and more ancient form is not wholly obsolete.[211] But if there were no telegraphs, neither was there any regular system of postage. The name of ‘Ely le Breviter’ or ‘Peter le Brevitour’ seems to remind us of this. I do not doubt myself the ‘breviter’ was kept by his lord for the writing or conveyance of letters or brevets.[212] Piers Plowman uses the word where, of the Pardoner’s preaching, it is said—

Lewed men loved it wel, And liked his wordes, Comen up knelynge To kissen his bulles. He bouched them with his brevet And blered their eighen.[213]

The signet of his lord was in the hands of the ‘Spigurnell’ or ‘Spigurell,’ both of which forms still exist, I believe, in our general nomenclature. As the sealer of all the royal writs, the king’s spigurell would have an office at once important and careful. The term itself is Saxon, its root implying that which is shut up or sealed. Our ‘Coffers,’ relics of the old ‘Ralph le Cofferer,’ or ‘John le Cofferer,’ though something occupative, were nevertheless official also, and are to be found as such in the thirteenth century. They remind us of the day when there were no such things as cheque-books, nor banks, nor a paper-money currency. Then on every expedition, be it warlike or peaceful, solid gold or silver had to be borne for the baron’s expenditure and that of his retinue; therefore none would be more important than he who superintended the transit from place to place of the chest of solid coinage set under his immediate care. Our early ‘Passavants,’ or ‘Pursevaunts,’ or more literally pursuivants, were under the direction of the ‘Herald,’or ‘Heraud,’ as Chaucer styles him, and usually preceded the royal or baronial retinue to announce its approach, and attend to such other duties of lesser importance as his superior delegated to him. In this respect he occupied a position much akin to that of the ‘Harbinger’ or ‘Herberger,’ who prepared the harborage or lodging, and all other entertainment required ere the cavalcade arrived. When we reflect upon the large number of retainers, the ceremonious list of attendants, the greater impediments to early travel, and the difficulties of forwarding information, we shall see that these officerships were by no means so formal as we might be apt to imagine. To give illustrations of all the above-mentioned surnames were easy, were it not that the number is so large that it becomes a difficulty which to select. Such entries, however, as ‘Jacob le Messager,’ ‘Godfrey le Coffrer,’ ‘Roger Passavant,’ ‘Main le Heralt,’ ‘Herbert le Herberjur,’ ‘Nicholas le Spigurnell,’ ‘Peter le Folle,’ or the Latinized ‘Johannes Stultus,’ may be recorded as among the more familiar. A reference to the Index will furnish examples of the rest, as well as additional ones of the above.

In a day when horses were of more consequence than now, we need not be surprised to find the baronial manger under special supervision. This officer figures in our mediæval archives in such entries as ‘Walter le Avenur’ or ‘William le Avenare.’[214] As his very name suggests, it was the avenar’s care to provide for the regular and sufficient feeding of the animals placed under his charge.[215] The ‘Boke of Curtayse’ tells us his duties—

The aveyner shall ordeyn provande good won For the lordys horsis everychon, They schyn have two cast of hay, A peck of provande on a day.

Elsewhere, too, the same writer says—

A maystur of horsys a squyer ther is, Aveyner and ferour under him i-wys.

Our ‘Palfreymans’ (‘John le Palfreyman,’ M.), though not always official, I do not doubt had duties also of a similar character in looking after the well-being of their mistress’s palfrey, and attending the lady herself when she rode to the cover, or took an airing on the more open and breezy hillside.

The two great amusements of the period we are considering were the hunt and the tournament. Of the former we have many relics, nor is the latter barren or unfruitful of terms connected therewith that still linger on in the surnames of to-day. The exciting encounters which took place in these chivalric meetings or jousts had a charm alike for the Saxon and the Norman; alike, too, for spectator as well as for him who engaged in the fierce mêlée. Training for this was by no means left to the discretion of amateur intelligence. In three several records of the thirteenth century I find such names as ‘Peter le Eskurmesur,’ ‘Henry le Eskyrmessur,’ and ‘Roger le Skirmisour.’ The root of these terms is, of course, the old French verb ‘eskirmir,’ to fence. It is thence we get our skirmish and scrimmage, the latter form, though looked upon now as of a somewhat slang character, being found in the best of society in our earlier writers. Originally it denoted a hand-to-hand encounter between two horsemen. We still imply by a skirmish a short and sharp conflict between the advanced posts of two contending armies. As a teacher of ‘the noble art of self-defence,’[216] we can easily understand how important was the skirmisher. The name has become much corrupted by lapse of time, scarcely recognisable, in fact, in such a garb as ‘Scrimmenger,’ ‘Skrymsher,’ ‘Skrimshire,’ and perchance ‘Scrimshaw,’ forms which I find in our present London and provincial directories. Of those who were wont to engage we have already mentioned the majority. All the different grades of nobility were present, and with them were their esquires, with shield and buckler, ready to supply a fresh unsplintered lance, or a new shield, with its proudly emblazoned crest. I need scarce remind the reader of what consequence in such a day as this would be the costume of him who thus engaged in such deadly conflict. The invention of gunpowder has changed the early tactics of fight. Battles are lost and won now long ere the real mêlée has taken place. Then everything, whether in war or tournament, was settled face to face. To pierce his opponent where an inlet could admit his spear, or to unhorse him by the shock of meeting, was the knight’s one aim. The bloodiness of such an affray can be better imagined than described. We still hear of distorted features in the after inspection of the scene of battle, but we can have no conception of the mangling that the bodies of horse and rider underwent, the inevitable result of the earlier manner of warfare. Death is mercifully quick now upon the battle-field. We have still three or four professional surnames that remind us of this. We have still our ‘Jackmans,’ or ‘Jakemans,’ as representatives of the former cavalry; so called from the ‘jack’ or coat of mail they wore. It is this latter article which has bequeathed to our youngsters of the nineteenth century their more peaceful and diminutive jacket. Thus mailed and horsed, they had to encounter the cruel onslaught of our ‘Spearmans,’ and ‘Pikemans,’ and ‘Billmans,’ names that themselves suggest how bloody would be the strife when hatchet blade, and sharp pike, and keen sword clashed together. To cover and shield the body, then, was the one thought of these early days of military tactics, and at the same time to give the fullest play to every limb and sinew. This was a work of a most careful nature, and no wonder it demanded the combined skill of several craftsmen. Such occupative sobriquets as ‘Adam le Armerer’ or ‘Simon le Armurer’ are now represented by the curter ‘Armer’ or ‘Armour.’ In the ‘Knight’s Tale’ it is said—

There were also of Martes division Th’ armerer, and the bowyer, and the smith, That forgeth sharpe swerdes on his stith.

Our ‘Frobishers,’ ‘Furbishers,’ and ‘Furbers,’ once found as ‘Richard le Fourbishour’ or ‘Alan le Fourbour,’ scoured and prepared the habergeon, or jack just referred to, while ‘Gilbert le Hauberger’ or ‘John le Haubergeour’ was more immediately engaged in constructing it. Our present Authorized Version, I need hardly say, still retains the word. In ‘Sire Thopas,’ too, it is used where it is said—

And next his schert an aketoun, And over that an habergoun.

Our classical-looking ‘Homers’ are the naturally corrupted form of the once familiar ‘le Heaumer,’ he who fashioned the warrior’s helmet.[217] Our ‘Sworders,’ I imagine, forged him his trusty blade,[218] while our ‘Sheathers’ furnished forth its slip. Our ‘Platers’ I would suggest as makers of his cuirass, while our ‘Kissers’—far less demonstrative than they look—are but relics of such a name as ‘Richard le Kissere,’ he who manufactured his cuishes or thigh armour, one of the most careful parts of the entire dress.[219] Lastly, our ‘Spurriers’ were there ready to supply him with his rowel, and thus in warlike guise he was prepared either for adventurous combat in behalf of the distressed damsel, or to seek favour in the eyes of her he loved in the more deadly lists.[220]

I must not forget to mention our ‘Kemps’ while upon military affairs, a general term as it was for a soldier in the days of which we are speaking. I believe the phrase ‘to go a kemping’ is still in use in the north. In the old rhyme of ‘Guy and Colbrand’ the minstrel says—

When meat and drink is great plentye, Then lords and ladys still will be, And sit and solace lythe: Then it is time for mee to speake, Of kern knightes and kempes greate, Such carping for to kythe.

How familiar a term it must have been in the common mouth the frequency with which the name is met fully shows.

Our ‘Slingers’ represent an all but forgotten profession, but they seem to have been useful enough in their day and generation. The sling was always attached to a stick, whence the old term ‘staffsling.’ Lydgate describes David as armed

With a staffe slynge, voyde of plate and mayle;

while in ‘Richard Cœur de Lion’ we are told—

Foremost he sette hys arweblasteres, And aftyr that hys good archeres, And aftyr hys staff-slyngeres, And other with scheeldes and speres.

But we must not forget old England’s one boast, her archers, and our last quotation fitly brings them to our notice. They, too, in the battle-field and in the rural list, maintained alike their supremacy. If we would be proud of our early victories, we must ever look with veneration on the bow. ‘Bowman’ and ‘Archer’ still represent the more military professional, but not alone. Even more interesting, as speaking for the more specific crossbow or ‘arbalist,’ are our ‘Alabasters,’ ‘Arblasters,’ ‘Arblasts,’ and ‘Balsters.’ In Robert of Gloucester’s description of the reign of the Conqueror, it is said—

So great power of this land and of France he nom (took) With him into England, of knights and squires, Spearmen anote, and bowemen, and also arblasters.

Chaucer, too, describing a battlement, says—

And eke within the castle were Springoldes, gonnes, bowes, and archers, And eke about at corners Men seine over the wall stand Grete engines, who were nere hand, And in the kernels, here and there, Of arblasters great plentie were.

In the Hundred Rolls he is Latinized as ‘John Alblastarius,’ and in the York Records as ‘Thomas Balistarius.’ The Inquisitiones style him ‘Richard le Alblaster,’ while the Parliamentary Writs register him as ‘Reginald le Arblaster.’ It was to this class of armour our word ‘artillery’ was first applied, a fact which our Bible translators have preserved, where, in describing the meeting between David and Jonathan, they speak of the latter as giving his ‘artillery to the lad.’ Cotgrave, too, in his dictionary, printed at the beginning of the seventeenth century, has the following:—‘Artellier, a bowyer or bow-maker, also a fletcher, or one that makes both bows and arrows.’ The mention of the fletcher brings us to the more general weapon. Such an entry as the following would seem strange to the eyes of the nineteenth century:—‘To Nicolas Frost, bowman, Stephen Sedar, fletcher,[221] Ralph, the stringer, and divers others of the said mysteries, in money, paid to them, viz.:—to the aforesaid Nicholas, for 500 bows, 31_l._ 8_s._; to the aforesaid Stephen, for 1,700 sheaves of arrows, 148_l._ 15_s._; and to the aforesaid Ralph, for forty gross of bowstrings, 12_l._’ (Exchequer Issues, 14 Henry IV.) This short extract in itself shows us the origin of at least three distinct surnames, viz.:—‘Bowyer,’ ‘Fletcher,’ and ‘Stringer.’ We should hardly recognise the first, however, in such entries as ‘Adam le Boghiere,’ or ‘William le Boghyere.’ ‘John le Bower’ reminds us that some of our ‘Bowers’ are similarly sprung, while ‘George le Boyer’ answers for our ‘Boyers.’ Besides these, we have ‘Robert Bowmaker’ or ‘John Bowmaykere’ to represent the fuller sobriquet. So much for the bow. Next comes the arrow. This was a very careful piece of workmanship. Four distinct classes of artizans were engaged in its structure, and, as we might expect, all are familiar names of to-day. ‘John le Arowsmyth’ we may set first. He confined himself to the manufacture of the arrow-head. Thus we find the following statement made in an Act passed in 1405:—‘Item, because the Arrowsmyths do make many faulty heads for arrows and quarels, it is ordained and established that all heads for arrows and quarels, after this time to be made, shall be well boiled or braised, and hardened at the points with steel.’ (Stat. Realm.)[222] ‘Clement le Settere’ or ‘Alexander le Settere’[223] was busied in affixing these to the shaft, and ‘John le Tippere’ or ‘William le Tippere’ in pointing them off. Nor is this all—there is yet the feather. Of the origin of such mediæval folk as ‘Robert le Fleccher’ or ‘Ada le Fletcher,’ we are reminded by Milton, where, in describing an angel, he says—

His locks behind, Illustrious on his shoulders, fledge with wings, Lay waving round.

The fletcher, or fledger as I had well-nigh called him, spent his time, in fact, in feathering arrows.

Skelton in ‘The Maner of the World’ says:—

So proude and so gaye, So riche in arraye, And so skant of mon-ey Saw I never: So many bowyers, So many fletchers, And so few good archers Saw I never.

While all these names, however, speak for specific workmanship, our ‘Flowers’ represent a more general term. We are told of Phœbus in the ‘Manciples Tale,’ that

His bowe he bent, and set therein a flo.

‘Flo,’ was a once familiar term for an arrow. ‘John le Floer,’ or ‘Nicholas le Flouer,’ therefore, would seem to be but synonymous with ‘Arrowsmith’ or ‘Fletcher.’ ‘Stringer’ and ‘Stringfellow’ are self-explanatory, and are common surnames still. What a list of sobriquets is here! What a change in English social life do they declare. Time was when to be a sure marksman was the object of every English boy’s ambition. The bow was his chosen companion. Evening saw him on the village green, beneath the shade of the old yew tree, and as he practised his accustomed sport, his breath would come thick and fast, as he bethought him of the coming wake, and his chance of bringing down the popinjay, and presenting the ribbon to his chosen queen of the May. Yes, times are altered. Teeming cities cover the once rustic sward, broadcloth has eclipsed the Lincoln green, the clothyard, the arrow; but still amid the crowd that rushes to and fro in our streets the name of an ‘Archer,’ or a ‘Bowman,’ or a ‘Butts,’ or a ‘Popgay’ spoken in our ears will hush the hubbub of the city, and, forgotten for a brief moment the greed for money, will carry us, like a pleasant dream recalled, into the fresher and purer atmosphere of England’s past.

In the poem from which I have but recently quoted we have the record of ‘gonnes,’ or ‘guns,’ as we should now term them. It would be quite possible for our nomenclature to be represented by memorials of the powder magazine, and I should be far from asserting that such is not the case.[224] In the household of Edward III. there are enumerated, among others, ‘Ingyners lvij; Artellers vj; Gonners vj.’ Here there is a clear distinction between the ‘gun’ and the ‘engine;’ between missiles hurled by powder and those by the catapult. Fifty years even earlier than this Chaucer had used the following sentence:—‘They dradde no assaut of gynne, gonne, nor skaffaut.’ In his ‘Romance,’ too, as I have just shown, he places in juxtaposition ‘grete engines’ and ‘gonnes.’ Of one, if not both of these, we have undoubted memorials in our nomenclature. The Hundred Rolls furnish us with a ‘William le Engynur’ and a ‘Walter le Ginnur;’ the Inquisitiones with a ‘Richard le Enginer,’ and the Writs with a ‘William le Genour.’ The descendants of such as these are, of course, our ‘Gunners,’ ‘Ginners,’ ‘Jenour,’ and ‘Jenners,’[225] the last of which are now represented by one who is as renowned for recovering as his ancestor in days gone by would be for destroying life. Our ‘Gunns’ and ‘Ginns’ also must be referred to the same source. In one of the records just alluded to a ‘Warin Engaine’ is to be met with. If we elide the first syllable, as in the previous instances, the modern form at once appears.

But if in the deadly tournament the baron and his retainers found an ample pastime, nevertheless the chase was of all diversions the most popular. In this the prince and the peasant alike found recreation, while with regard to the latter, as we shall see, it was also combined with service. The woody wastelands, so extended in these earlier days of a sparse population, afforded sport enough for the most ardent huntsman. According to the extent of privilege or the divisions into which they were separated, these tracts were styled by the various terms of ‘forest,’ ‘chase,’ ‘park,’ and ‘warren.’ To any one at all conversant with old English law these several words will be familiar enough. To keep the wilder beasts within their prescribed limits, to prevent them injuring the tilled lands, and in general to guard the common interests of lord and tenant, keepers were appointed. The names of these officers, the chief of whom are entitled by appellations whose root is of a local character, are well-nigh all found to this day in our directories. Indeed there is no class of names more firmly imbedded there. In the order of division I have just alluded to, we have ‘Forester,’ with its corrupted ‘Forster’ and ‘Foster,’ relics of such registered folk as ‘Ivo le Forester,’ ‘Henry le Forster,’ or ‘Walter le Foster;’ ‘Chaser,’ now obsolete, I believe, but lingering on for a considerable period as the offspring of ‘William’ or ‘Simon le Chasur;’ ‘Parker,’ or ‘Parkman,’ or ‘Park,’ descended from ‘Adam le Parkere,’ or ‘Hamo le Parkere,’ or ‘Roger atte Parke,’ or ‘John del Parc,’ and ‘Warener’ or ‘Warner,’ or ‘Warren,’ lineally sprung from men of the stamp of ‘Thomas le Warrener,’ ‘Jacke le Warner,’ or ‘Richard de Waren.’ The curtailed forms of these several terms seem to have been all but consequent with the rise of the officership itself. ‘Love’ in the ‘Romance’ says:—

Now am I knight, now chastelaine, Now prelate, and now chaplaine, Now priest, now clerke, now forstere.

In his description of the Yoman, too, Chaucer adds—

An horne he bere, the baudrick was of grene, A fostere was he sothely as I guesse.

Thus, again, Langland, in setting forth Glutton’s encounter with the frequenters of the tavern, speaks familiarly of—

Watte the Warner.

But these are not all. It is with them we must associate our ancestral ‘Woodwards’ or ‘Woodards,’ and still more common ‘Woodreefs,’ ‘Woodrows,’ ‘Woodroffs,’ and ‘Woodruffs,’ all more or less perverted forms of the original wood-reeve.[226] A song representing the husbandmen as complaining of the burdens in Edward II.’s reign says—

The hayward heteth us harm to habben of his The bailif beckneth us bale, and weneth wel do; The wodeward waiteth us wo.

All these officers were more or less of legal capacity, men whose duty it was, bill in hand, to guard the vert and venison under their charge,[227] to act as agents for their lord in regard to the pannage of hogs, to look carefully to the lawing of dogs, and in case of offences to present them to the verderer at the forest assize. The ‘Moorward,’ found in our early records as ‘German le Morward’ or ‘Henry le Morward,’ guarded the wilder and bleaker districts. ‘The Rider,’ commonly found as ‘Roger le Rydere’ or ‘Ralph le Ryder,’ in virtue of having a larger extent of jurisdiction, was mounted, though his office was essentially the same. Mr. Lower, remarking upon this word, has a quotation from the ballad of ‘William of Cloudesley,’ where the king, rewarding the brave archer, says:—

I give thee eightene pence a day, And my bowe thou shalt bere, And over all the north countrè I make thee chyfe rydere.

With him we must associate our ‘Rangers’ and ‘Keepers,’ who, acting doubtless under him, assisted also in the work of patrolling the woodland and recovering strayed beasts, and presenting trespassers to the swainmote just referred to.

The bailiff, shortened as a surname into ‘Bailey,’ ‘Baillie’ (‘German le Bailif,’ J., ‘Henry le Baillie,’ M.), like the reve, seems to have been both of legal and private capacity; in either case acting as deputy.[228] This word ‘reve’ did a large amount of duty formerly, but seems now to be fast getting into its dotage. In composition, however, it is far from being obsolete. The ‘Reeve’ (‘John le Reve,’ M., ‘Sager le Reve,’ H.), who figured so conspicuously among the Canterbury Pilgrims, would be the best representative of the term in his day, I imagine—

His lordes shepe, his nete, and his deirie, His swine, his hors, his store, and his pultrie, Were wholly in this reves governing.

Our ‘Grieves’ (‘Thomas le Greyve,’ A.), who are but the fuller ‘Gerefa,’ fulfilled, and I believe in some parts of Scotland still fulfil, the capacity here described, being but manorial bailiffs, in fact. ‘The Boke of Curtasye’ says—

Grayvis, and baylys, and parker Shall come to accountes every yere Byfore the auditours of the lorde.

Thus, too, our ‘Portreeves’ (‘William le Portreve,’ A., ‘Augustin le Portreve,’ A.), who in our coast towns fulfilled the capacity of our more general mayor, are oftentimes in our earlier records enrolled as Portgreve.’ ‘Hythereve’ (‘John le Huthereve,’ O.), from hithe, a haven, would seem to denote the same office, while our obsolete ‘Fenreves’ (‘Adam le Fenreve,’ A.), like the ‘Moorward’ mentioned above, had charge, I doubt not, of the wilder and more sparsely populated tracts of land. Many other compounds of this word we have already recorded; some we shall refer to by-and-by, and with them and these the reeve, after all, is not likely to be soon forgotten.

But the poorer villeins were not without those who should guard their interests also. In a day of fewer landmarks and scantier barriers trespasses would be inevitable. An interesting relic of primitive precaution against the straying of animals is found in the officership of the ‘Hayward’ (or ‘Adam le Heyward,’ as the Hundred Rolls have it), whose duty it was to guard the cattle that grazed on the village common. He was so styled from the Saxon ‘hay’ or ‘hedge,’ already spoken of in our previous chapter. An old poem has it—

In tyme of hervest mery it is ynough; Peres and apples hongeth on bough, The hayward bloweth mery his horne; In every felde ripe is corne.

In ‘Piers Plowman,’ too, we have the word—

I have an horne, and be a hayward, And liggen out a nyghtes And kepe my corne and my croft From pykers and theves.

It will be seen from these two references that the officership was of a somewhat general character. The cattle might be his chief care, but the common village interests were also under his supervision. The term has left many surnames to maintain its now decayed and primitive character; ‘Hayward’ and ‘Haward’ are, however, the most familiar. ‘Hayman,’ doubtless, is of similar origin. If, in spite of the hayward’s care, it came to pass that any trespass occurred, the village ‘pounder’ was ready at hand to impound the animal till its owner claimed it, and paid the customary fine—

In Wakefield there lives a jolly pinder, In Wakefield, all on a green.

So we are told in ‘Robin Hood.’ I need not add that our many ‘Pounders,’ ‘Pinders,’ and still more classic ‘Pindars,’ are but the descendants of him or one of his confrères. I do not doubt myself, too, that our ‘Penders’ (‘William le Pendere’ in the Parliamentary Writs) will be found to be of a similar origin.

While, however, these especial officers superintended the general interests of lord and tenant, there were those also whose peculiar function it was to guard the particular quarry his master loved to chase; to see them unmolested and undisturbed during such time as the hunt itself was in abeyance, and then, when the chase came on, to overlook and conduct its course. These, too, are not without descendants. Such names as ‘Stagman’ and ‘Buckmaster,’[229] ‘Hindman’ and ‘Hartman,’ ‘Deerman’ and its more amatory ‘Dearman,’ by their comparative frequency, remind us how important would be their office in the eye of their lord.

Nor are those who assisted in the lordly hunt itself left unrepresented in our nomenclature. The old ‘Elyas le Hunderd,’ or ‘hund-herd,’ has left in our ‘Hunnards’ an abiding memorial of the ‘houndsman.’ Similarly the ‘vaultrier’ was he who unleashed them. It has been a matter of doubt whether or no the more modern ‘feuterer’ owes his origin to this term, but the gradations found in such registrations as ‘John le Veutrer,’ ‘Geoffrey le Veuterer,’ and ‘Walter le Feuterer,’ to be met with in the rolls of this period, set all question, I should imagine, at rest. An old poem, describing the various duties of these officers and their charges, says—

A halpeny the hunte takes on the day For every hounde the sothe to say; The vewtrer, two cast of brede he tase, Two lesshe of greyhounds if that he has.

‘Fewter’ and ‘Futter,’[230] however, seem to be the only relics we now possess of this once important care. Such names as ‘John le Berner’ or ‘Thomas le Berner,’ common enough in old rolls, must be distinguished from our more aristocratic ‘Berners.’ The berner was a special houndsman who stood with fresh relays of dogs ready to unleash them if the chase grew heated and long. In the Parliamentary Rolls he is termed a ‘yeoman-berner.’ Our ‘Hornblows,’ curtailed from ‘Hornblower,’ and simpler ‘Blowers,’ would seem to be closely related to the last, for the horn figured as no mean addition by its jubilant sounds to the excitement of the chase. He who used it held an office that required all the attention he could bring to bear upon it. The dogs were not unleashed until he had sounded the blast, and if at any time from his elevated station he caught sight of the quarry, he was by the manner of winding his instrument to certify to the huntsman the peculiar class to which it belonged. In the Hundred Rolls we find him inscribed as ‘Blowhorn,’ a mere reversal of syllables. Of a more general and professional character probably would be our ‘Hunters,’ ‘Huntsmans,’ and ‘Hunts,’ not to mention the more Norman ‘John le Venner’ or ‘Richard Fenner.’ It may not be known to all our ‘Hunts’ that theirs, the shorter form, was the most familiar term in use at that time; hence the number that at present exist. We are told in the ‘Knight’s Tale’ of the—

Hunte and horne, and houndes him beside;

while but a little further on he speaks of—

The hunte ystrangled with the wilde beres.

Forms like ‘Walter le Hunte’ or ‘Nicholas le Hunte’ are very common to the old records. As another proof of the general use of this word we may cite its compounds. ‘Borehunte’ carries us back to the day when the wild boar ranged the forest’s deeper gloom. ‘Wolfhunt,’ represented in the Inquisitiones by such a sobriquet as ‘Walter le Wolfhunte,’ reminds us that Edgar did not utterly exterminate that savage beast of prey, as is oftentimes asserted. A family of this name held lands in the Peak of Derbyshire at this period by the service of keeping the forest clear of wolves. In the forty-third year of Edward III. one Thomas Engeine held lands in Pitchley, in the county of Northampton, by service of finding at his own cost certain dogs for the destruction of wolves, foxes, &c., in the counties of Northampton, Rutland, Oxford, Essex, and Buckingham; nay, as late as the eleventh year of Henry VI. Sir Robert Plumpton held one borate of land in Nottinghamshire, by service of winding a horn, and chasing or frightening the wolves in Sherwood Forest.[231] Doubtless, however, as in these recorded instances, it would be in the more hilly and bleaker districts, or in the deeper forests, he found his safest and last retreat. It seems well-nigh literally to be coming down from a mountain to a mole-hill to speak of our ‘Mole-hunts,’ the other compound of this word. But small as he was in comparison with the other, he was scarcely less obnoxious on account of his burrowing propensities, for which the husbandman gave him the longer name of mouldwarp. His numbers, too, made him formidable, and it is no wonder that people found occupation enough in his destruction, or that the name of ‘Molehunt’ should have found its way into our early rolls. So late, indeed, as 1641, we find in a farming book the statement that 12_d._ was the usual price paid by the farmer for every dozen old moles secured, and 6_d._ for the same number of young ones. This speaks at least for their plentifulness. An old provincialism for mole, and one not yet extinct, was ‘wont’ or ‘want.’ This explains the name of ‘Henry le Wantur,’ which may be met with in the Hundred Rolls. In the Sloane MS. is a method given ‘for to take wontes.’ It would be in the deeper underwood our ‘Todmans’ and ‘Todhunters,’ the chasers of the fox, or ‘tod,’ as he was popularly called, found diversion enough. It would be here our ‘Brockmans’ secured the badger. I doubt not these were both also of professional character—aids and helps to the farmer. Indeed, he had many upon whose services he could rely for a trifle of reward in the shape of a silver penny, or a warm mess of potage on the kitchen settle. Our ‘Burders’ and ‘Fowlers,’ by their craft, whether of falconry or netting, or in the use of the cross-bow bolt, aided to clear the air of the more savage birds of prey, or of the lesser ones that would molest the bursting seed. I need scarcely remark that the distinction between ‘bird’ and ‘fowl’ is modern. The ‘fowls of the air’ with our Saxon Bible, and up to very recent days, embraced every winged creature, large and small. In our very expression ‘barndoor-fowl’ we are only using a phrase which served to mark the distinction between the wilder and the more domesticated bird. The training and sale of bullfinches seem to have given special employment then, as now, to such as would undertake the care thereof. A ‘Robert le Fincher’ occurs at an early period, and I see his descendants are yet in being. As we shall see in a later chapter, this bird has set his mark deeply upon our sobriquet nomenclature. Our ‘Trappers,’ whether for bird or beast, confined their operations to the soil, capturing their spoil by net or gin.

We owe several names, or rather several forms of the same name, to the once favourite pursuit of falconry. Of all sports in the open air this was the one most entirely aristocratic. In it the lord and his lady alike found pleasure. It had become popular so early as the ninth century, and, as Mr. Lower says, in such estimation was the office of State falconer held in Norman times that Domesday shows us, apart from others, four different tenants-in-chief, who are described each as ‘accipitrarius,’ or falconer. Until John’s reign it was not lawful for any but those of the highest rank to keep hawks, but in the ‘Forest Charter’ a special clause was introduced which gave power to every free man to have an aerie. So valuable was a good falcon that it even stood chief among royal gifts, and up to the beginning of the seventeenth century it brought as much as 100 marks in the market.[232] Royal edicts were even passed for the preservation of their eggs. From all this, and much more that might be adduced, it is easy to understand how important was the office of falconer, nor need we wonder that it is one of the most familiar names to be found in early rolls. Of many forms those of ‘Falconer,’ ‘Falconar,’ ‘Faulkner,’ ‘Falkner,’[233] ‘Faulconer,’ and ‘Faukener,’ seem to be the commonest. The last form is found in the ‘Boke of Curtasye’—

The chaunceler answeres for their clothyng, For yomen, faukeners, and their horsyng, For their wardrop and wages also.

In our former ‘Idonea or Walter le Oyseler’ we recognise but another French term for the same. A special keeper of the goshawk, or ‘oster,’ got into mediæval records in the shape of ‘William le Astrier,’ or ‘Robert le Ostricer,’ or ‘Richard le Hostriciere,’ or ‘Godfrey Ostriciarius.’ The Latin ‘accipiter’ is believed to be the root of the term, which with such other perverted forms as ‘Ostregier,’ ‘Ostringer,’ ‘Astringer,’ and ‘Austringer,’ lingered on the common tongue till so late as the seventeenth century.[234] A curious proof of the prevailing passion is found in the name of ‘Robert le Jessmaker,’ set down in the Hundred Rolls. The ‘jess’ was the leathern or silken strap fastened closely round the foot of the hawk, from which the line depended and was held by the falconer. That the demand for these should be so great as to cause a man to give himself up entirely to their manufacture, will be the best evidence of the ardour with which our forefathers entered into this pastime. The end of falconry was, however, sudden as it was complete. The introduction of the musket at one fell swoop did away with office, pursuit, with, in fact, the whole paraphernalia of the amusement, and now it is without a relic, save in so far as these names abide with us.

In concluding this part of our subject it is pleasant to remind ourselves that, however strong might be the antagonism which this chapter displays between Norman and Saxon, the pride of the one, the oppression of the other, that antagonism is now overpast and gone. We well know that a revolution was at work, sometimes showing itself violently, but generally silent in its progress, by which happier circumstances arrived, happier at any rate for the country at large. We well know how this consummation came, how these several races became afterwards one by the suppression of that power the more independent of these barons had wielded, by confusion of blood, by the acquisition of more general liberty, by mutuality of interests, by the contagious influences of commerce, and, above all, by the kindly and prejudice-weakening force of lapsing time. All this we know, and, as it is in a sense foreign to our present purpose, I pass over it now. I trust that I have already shown that there is something, after all, in a name; at any rate in a surname, for that in it is supplied a link between the past and the present, for that in the utterance of one of these may be recalled not merely the lineaments of some face of to-day, but the dimmer outline of an age which is past beyond recall for ever. Viewed in a light so broad as this, the country churchyard, with each mossy stone, is, apart from the diviner lessons it teaches, a living page of history; and even the parish register, instead of being a mere record of dry and uninteresting facts, becomes instinct with the lives and surroundings of our English forefathers.

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