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—

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:—

‘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:—

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—

while ‘Piers Plowman’ represents Covetousness as saying—

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—

‘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—

An old poem, too, says—

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

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—

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

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:—

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:—

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:—

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—

’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—

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—

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—

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

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—

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—

‘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—

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:—

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:—

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’:—

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:—

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:—

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—

she is gone

and Piers Plowman says our Lord came in through

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—

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—

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—

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—

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—

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—

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 stedfast 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.

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—

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

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—

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—

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—

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:—

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—

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—

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 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

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—

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—

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

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:—

‘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 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:—

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 Coeur 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,

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.