I now come to the consideration of occupations generally, and to this I think it will be advisable to devote two chapters. One reason for so doing, the main one in fact, is that they seem naturally to divide themselves into two classes—those of a rural character, very numerous at that time on account of agricultural pursuits being so general, and those of a more diverse and I may say civilized kind, bearing upon the community’s life—literature and art, dress, with all its varied paraphernalia, the boudoir and the kitchen. In considering the former, the character of our surnames will give us, I imagine, by no means a bad or ineffective picture of the simplicity of our early rural life, its retirement, and even calm. In shadowing forth the latter, we shall be enabled to see what were the available means of that age, and by the very absence of certain names to realise how numberless have been the resources that discovery has added at a more recent period. It will be well, too, to give two entire chapters to these surnames, as being worthy of somewhat further particularity than the others. They betray much more of our English life that has become obsolete. Local names, as I have said already, while they must ever denote much of change, denote the changes more especially of Nature herself, which are slow in general, and require more than the test of four or five centuries to make their transitions apparent. Personal or Christian names vary almost less than these. The Western European system is set upon the same foundation, and whatever has been peculiar to separate countries has long since, by the intermingling of nations, whether peaceful or revolutionary, been added to the one common stock. Some indeed have fallen into disuse through crises of various kinds. A certain number, too, of a fanciful kind, as we have already seen, have been added within the last two centuries, but these latter have not of course affected our surnames. Nicknames, which form so large a proportion of our nomenclature, remain much the same; for a nation’s tongue, while receiving a constant deposit and throwing off ever a redundant phraseology, still, as a rule, does not touch these; they are taken from the deeper channel of a people’s speech. But the fashion and custom of living is ever changing. New wants spring up, and old requirements become unneeded; fresh resources come to hand, and the more antique are at once despised and thrown aside. In a word, invention and discovery cast their shafts at the very heart of usage. Thus it is that we shall have such a large number of obsolete occupations to recount—occupations which but for our rolls even the oldest and most reliable of our less formal writings would have failed to preserve to us.

It is quite possible for the eye to light upon hamlets in the more retired nooks and crannies of England that have undergone but little change during even the last six centuries, hamlets of which we could say with Goldsmith:—

I have seen, or I at least imagined I have seen, such a picture as this; but if there be, this of all times is that in which we must be prepared for a revolution. Our railways are every day but connecting us with the more inaccessible districts, following as they do the curves of our valleys, winding alongside our streams, like nature and art in parallel. As they thus increase they bear with them equally increased facilities for carrying the modernized surroundings and accessories of life on this, on that, and on every hand. Thus usage is everywhere fast giving way before utility, and thus in proportion as art and invention get elbow-room, so does the primitive poetry of our existence fade from view. We can remember villages—there are still such—around which time had flung a halo of so simple aspect, villages whose steads were grouped with so exquisite a quaintness, so utterly and beautifully irregular, so full of unexpected joints and curves, and all so thatched, and embrowned, and trellised, that with the loss of them we have lost a pastoral. There may be indeed a certain poetry in model villas of undeviating line and exact altitude; there may be a beauty in an erection which reminds you in perpetuity of the great Euclidian truth that a straight line is that which lies evenly between its extreme points, but at times it puts one in sober mood to think all the touches of a past time are to fade away, and these be in their stead. How different the tale nomenclature tells us of former rusticity and simpler tastes.

The early husbandman required but little decorative refinement for his homestead. To keep out the cold blast and the driving rain, to have a niche by the fireside comfortable and warm, this was all he asked or wished for. His roof was all but invariably composed of thack or thatch, and every village had its ‘thatcher.’ Busy indeed would he be as the late autumn drew nigh, and stack and stead must be shielded from the keen and chilling winter. The Hundred Roll forms of the surname are ‘Joan le Thaccher’ and ‘Thomas le Thechare;’ the Parliamentary Writs ‘John le Thacher;’ while the more modern directory furnishes us with such changes rung upon the same as ‘Thatcher,’ ‘Thacker’^[235] (still a common provincialism for the occupation), and ‘Thackery,’ or ‘Thackeray,’ or Thackwray.’^[236] These latter are of course but akin to the old ‘John le Fermery,’ or ‘Richard le Vicary,’ the termination added being the result of popular whim or caprice. Our ‘Readers’ had less to do with book lore than we might have supposed, being but descendants of the mediÆval ‘William le Redere,’^[237] another term for the same kind of labour. The old ‘Hellier,’ or ‘Helier,’ carries us back to a once well-known root. To ‘hill,’ or ‘hele,’ was to cover, and a ‘hilyer’ was a roofer.^[238] Sir John Maundville says with regard to the Tartars, ‘the helynge of their houses, and ... the dores ben alle of woode;’ and John of Trevisa speaks of the English ‘whyt cley and red’ as useful ‘for to make crokkes and other vessels, and barned tyyl to hele with houses and churches.’ Gower, too, uses the word prettily, but perfectly naturally, when he says—

Amongst other of the many forms that still survive surnominally we have ‘Hillyer,’ ‘Hillier,’ ‘Hellier,’ ‘Hellyer,’ and the somewhat unpleasant ‘Helman’ and ‘Hellman.’ Earlier instances may be found in the Hundred Rolls in such entries as ‘Robert le Heliere’ or ‘Will. Heleman.’ Our ‘Tylers’ are well and quaintly represented in the early rolls. One mediÆval spelling of this good old-fashioned name is ‘Tyghelere’ (Adam le Tyghelere, P.W.), while such forms as ‘le Tuglur,’ ‘le Tuler,’ or ‘le Tewler,’ as representatives of the Norman-French vocabulary, meet us on every hand. Whether any of their descendants have had the courage to reproduce any of these renderings I cannot say. I do not find any in our directories. Our ‘Smiths’ have not been quite so qualmish. With the tylers we may fitly introduce our ‘Shinglers,’ they who used the stout oaken wood in the place of burnt clay. Churches were oftentimes so covered. Mr. Halliwell quotes the following somewhat sarcastic couplet:—

Piers Plowman, too, speaks similarly of Noah’s Ark as the ‘shyngled ship.’^[240] All these names have, occupatively speaking, now become obsolete, or nearly so; our ‘Slaters,’ or ‘Sclaters,’ or ‘Slatters,’ having usurped the entire position they were formerly content to share with their humbler brethren.^[241]

In the majority of the above names we shall find the Saxon to be in all but whole possession of the field. The fact is, the roof and its appurtenances were little regarded for a long period by our early architects, if we may give such a grand term to those who set up the ordinary homestead of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There were no chimneys even in the residences of the rich and noble. A hole in the roof, or the window, or the door, one of these, whether in the homes of the peer or the peasant, was the outlet for all obnoxious vapours. With the Normans, however, came a great increase of refinement in the masonry and wooden framework of which our houses are composed. Such names as ‘Adam le Quarreur,’ or ‘Hugh le Quareur,’ ‘Walter le Marbiler,’ or ‘Geoffrey le Merberer,’ ‘Gotte le Mazoun,’ or ‘Walter le Masun,’ or ‘Osbert le Machun’ represent a cultivation of which the earlier settled race, if they knew something, did not avail themselves in their merely domestic architecture. Two of these occupations are referred to by ‘Cocke Lorelle,’ when he speaks of—

‘Henry le Wallere,’ whose sobriquet was ennobled later on by one of our poets, is the only entry I can set by these as belonging to the Saxon tongue.^[243] It is the same with the Norman ‘Amice le Charpenter’ and ‘Alan le Joygnour.’ While the former framed the more solid essentials, the very name of the latter infers a careful supervision of minutiÆ, of which only a more refined taste would take cognizance. The descendants of such settlers as these still hold the place they then obtained, and are unchanged otherwise than in the fashion of spelling their name.

Of the plaster work we have a goodly array of memorials, the majority of which, of course, are connected with a higher class work than the mere cottager required. The ordinary term in use at present for a maker of lime is ‘limeburner.’ It is quite possible that in our ‘Limebears’ or ‘Limebeers’ we have but a corruption of this. Such sobriquets as ‘Hugh le Limwryte’ and ‘John le Limer’ give us, however, the more general mediÆval forms. The latter is still to be met with among our surnames. But these are not all. We have in our ‘Dawbers’ the descendants of the old ‘Thomas le Daubour,’ or ‘Roger le Daubere,’ of the thirteenth century. ‘Cocke Lorelle,’ whom I have but just quoted, mentions among other workmen—

Our ‘Authorised Version’ when it speaks of ‘the wall daubed with untempered mortar,’ still preserves their memorial, and our ‘Plasters’ and ‘Plaisters’ are but sturdy scions of many an early registered ‘Adam le Plastier,’ ‘Joanna le Plaisterer,’ or ‘John le Cementarius.’ The last of this class I would mention is ‘Robert Pargeter’ or ‘William Pergiter,’ a name inherited by our ‘Pargiters’ and ‘Pargeters.’ This was an artisan of a higher order. He laboured, in fact, at the more ornamental plaster work. In the accounts of Sir John Howard, A.D. 1467, is the following entry:—‘Item, the vj day of Aprylle my master made a covenaunt with Saunsam the tylere, that he schalle pergete, and whighte and bemefelle all the new byldynge, and he schalle have for his labore xiijs. ivd.’^[244] It is used metaphorically, but I cannot add very happily, in an old translation of Ovid—

‘Roger le Peynture’ or ‘Henry le Peintur,’ ‘Ralph le Gilder’ and ‘Robert le Stainer,’ were engaged, I imagine, in the equally careful work of decorating passage and hall within, and all have left offspring enough to keep up their perpetual memorial. Thus, within and without, the house itself has afforded room for little change in our nomenclature, though the artisans themselves have now a very different work to perform to that of their mediÆval prototypes. The increase of wealth and a progressive culture have not merely taught but demanded a more careful and refined workmanship in the details of ordinary housebuilding. We may readily imagine, however, even in this early day, how little the simple bondsman, or freer husbandman, had to do with such artisans as even then existed. I do not find, at least the exceptions are of the rarest, that these workmen dwelt in the more rural districts at all. Their names are to be met with in the towns, where the richer tradespeople and burgesses were already beginning to copy the fashions and habits of life of the higher aristocracy.

We have already noticed the ‘town’—how it originally denoted but the simple farmstead with its immediate surroundings, then its gradual enlargement of sense as other steads increased and multiplied around it. We have also seen how the old ‘ham’ or home gathered about it such accessions of human abodes as converted it in time into one of those village communities, so many of which we still find in the outer districts, almost, as I have said, unaltered from their early foundation. It was in these various homesteads dwelt the peasantry. There might be seen our ‘Cotmans’ and ‘Cotters’ (‘Richard Coteman,’ A., ‘Simon le Cotere,’ F.F.), the descendants, doubtless, of the ‘cotmanni’ of Domesday Book. Similar in origin and as humble in degree would be our now numerous ‘Cotterels’ or ‘Cottrels’ (‘William Coterel,’ M., ‘Joice Cotterill,’ Z.), till a comparatively recent period an ordinary sobriquet of that class of our country population. A curious memorial of a past state of life abides with us in our ‘Boardmans,’ ‘Boarders,’ ‘Bordmans,’ and ‘Borders.’ They were the tenants of lands which their lord kept expressly for the maintenance of his table, the rental being paid in kind. Hence our old English law-books speak familiarly of bord-service, or bord-load, or bord-land. The term board in this same sense still lingers on the common tongue, for we are yet wont to use such phrases as bed and board, or a frugal board, or a board plentifully spread. A determinate, as distinct from an unfixed service, has left its mark in our ‘Sockermans,’ ‘Suckermans,’ and ‘Sockmans,’ they who held by socage, or socmanry, as the old law-books have it. Under this tenure, as a condition of the meagre rental, the stout-hearted, thick-limbed rustic was to be ready, as his lord’s adherent, to stand by him in every assault, either as archer, or arbalister, or pikeman—that is, fealty was to eke out the remaining sum which would otherwise have been due. But there were of these Saxon husbandmen some under no such thraldom, however honourable, as this, and of these freeholders we must set as the highest our ‘Yomans’ and ‘Yeomans.’ This term, however, became an official one, and it is doubtful to which aspect of the word we are to refer the present owners of the name. It is possible both features may have had something to do with its origination. How anxious they who had been redeemed, or who had been born free, though of humble circumstances, were to preserve themselves from a doubtful or suspected position such names as ‘Walter le Free’ or ‘John le Freman’ will fully show. We find even such appellatives as ‘Matilda Frewoman’ or ‘Agnes Frewyfe,’ in the latter case the husband possibly being yet in bondage. In our ‘Frys,’ a sobriquet that has acquired much honour of late years and represented in mediÆval rolls by such entries as ‘Thomas le Frye’ or ‘Walter le Frie,’ we have but an obsolete rendering of ‘free.’^[245] These, as we see, are all Saxon—but Norman equivalents are not wanting. Our ‘Francoms’ or ‘Francombs’ and ‘Frankhams,’ names by no means uncommon in our existing registers, are but Anglicised dresses worn by the posterity of such registered folk as ‘Henry le Franchome,’ or ‘Reginald le Fraunchome,’ or ‘Hugh le Fraunch-humme.’ ‘William le Fraunk,’ too, or ‘Fulco le Franc,’ can boast many a hale descendant in our ‘Franks;’ and ‘Roger le Franklyn’ or ‘John le Fraunkelyn’ in our ‘Franklins,’ a name from henceforth endeared to Englishmen as that of our gallant but lost Arctic hero. From Chaucer’s description of one such we should deem the ‘franklin’ to have been of decidedly comfortable position, a well-to-do householder, in fact.

But we are not without vestiges of the baser servitudes of the time, and in this category we must set the great bulk of the agricultural classes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The descendants of the old ‘Ivo le Bondes’ and ‘Richard le Bondes’ are still in our midst, and to judge merely from their number then and now enrolled, we see what a familiar position must that of personal bondage have been.

says an old rhyme.^[246] Still more general terms for those who lay under this miserable serfdom were those of ‘Knave’ or ‘Villein.’ ‘Walter le Knave’ or ‘Lambert le Vilein’ or ‘Philip le Vylayn’ are names registered at the time of which we are speaking. The odium, however, that has gradually gathered around these sobriquets has caused them to be thrown off by the posterity of those who first acquired them as simple bondmen. Indeed, there was the time when, as I shall have occasion to show in a succeeding chapter, our forefathers could speak of ‘Goodknaves’ and ‘Goodvilleins.’ Feudal disdain of all that lay beneath chivalric service, however, has done its work, and we all now speak, not merely as if these terms implied that which was mean and despicable in outward condition, but that which also was morally depraved and vile. ‘Geoffrey le Sweyn’ or ‘Hugh le Sweyn,’ however, by becoming the exponent of honest rusticity, has rescued his sobriquet from such an ill-merited destiny, and has left in many of our ‘Swains’ a token of his mediÆval gallantry. ‘John le Hyne’ or ‘William le Hyne’ (found also as Hind), as representative of the country labourer, is equally sure of perpetuity, as the most cursory survey of our directories will prove.^[247] Of the ‘Reve’ in the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ we are told:—

In the ‘Townley Mysteries,’ too, the word occurs. In the account of the reconciliation betwixt Jacob and Esau the former is made to say:—

In the rural habitations we have mentioned, then dwelt these various members of the lower class community.

The sobriquets we have just briefly surveyed, however, are of a more general character. We must now, and as briefly, scan some of those which in themselves imply the particular service which as rustic labourers their first owners performed, and by which the titles were got. This class is well represented by such a name as ‘Plowman.’ Langland, when he would take from a peasant point of view a sarcastic survey of the low morality of his time, as exemplified in the English Church ere yet she was reformed, could fix upon no better sobriquet than that of ‘Piers Plowman,’ and has thus given a prominence to the name it can never lose. What visions of homely and frugal content we discern in the utterance of such a surname as this; what thoughts of healthy life, such as are becoming rarer with each returning year—

It was with him at early dawn would issue forth our ‘Tillyers’ or ‘Tillmans,’ to help him cleave the furrow. A little later on we might have seen our ‘Mowers’ and ‘Croppers’^[248] hanging up their scythes and sickles, as the autumn, in richly clad garb, passed slowly by. Then again in due season busy enough would be the ‘Dyker,’ now spelt ‘Dicker,’^[249] and the ‘Dykeman’ or ‘Dickman.’ With what an enviable appetite would these eat up to the last relic their rasher of bacon and black bread, and quaff their home-brewed ale, a princely feast after the hard toil of draining the field. To dike was merely to dig, the root being the same. Of the kindly plowman Chaucer says—

The Malvern dreamer, too, speaks in the same fashion of ‘dikeres and delvers,’ and among other characters introduces to our notice ‘Daw the Dykere,’ ‘Daw’ being, as I have already shown, but the shorter David. Our ‘Drayners,’ I need not add, were but his compeers in the same labour. Perhaps one of the most beautiful features that help to make up a truly English rural landscape is the hedgerows, following the windings of our lanes, and mazy bypaths skirting our meadows. England is eminently a land of enclosures. Still all this has been the result of progressing time. If our pinder be now an obsolete officership it is because the lines of appropriation have become more clearly marked. It is only thus we can understand the importance of his position in every rural community four or five hundred years ago. No wonder, then, our ‘Hedgers’ and ‘Hedgmans’ are to be found whose ancestors were once occupied in setting up these pretty barriers. An old song of James I.’s day says:—

If stakes or pales were used, it is to our ‘Pallisers’ and obsolete ‘Herdleres’ our forefathers looked to set them up. The former term I have but come across once as an absolute surname, but such entries as ‘Robert Redman, palayser,’ or ‘James Foster, palycer,’ are to be met with occasionally, and at once testify to the origin of the term as found in our existing registers. ‘Pallister,’ too, is not obsolete; strictly speaking, the feminine form of the above. I find it written ‘Pallyster’ and ‘Palyster’ in an old Yorkshire inventory. But there is one more term belonging to this group which I am afraid has disappeared from our family nomenclature—that of ‘Tiner,’ he who tined or mended hedges. A ‘John le Tynere’ occurs in the Parliamentary Writs. We are reminded by Verstigan’s book on ‘Decayed Intelligence’ that ‘hedging and tining’ was a phrase in vogue not more than 200 years ago. Mr. Taylor, in his ‘Words and Places,’ connects our ‘tine’ in the ‘tines of a stag’s horns’ or ‘the tines of a fork,’ with the same root implying a ‘twig.’ In our old English forest law a ‘tineman’ was an officer very similar to the ‘hayward,’ the only apparent difference being that he served by night. The two terms are exactly similar in sense. We are not without relics, too, of our former means and methods of enriching the glebe. Even here several interesting memorials are preserved to us. ‘Marler,’^[251] ‘Clayer,’ and ‘Chalker’ (‘Alice le Marlere,’ A., ‘Thomas le Chalker,’ A., ‘Simon le Clayere,’ A.), still existing, remind us how commonly the land was manured with marl and other substances of a calcareous nature. Trevisa, writing upon this very subject, says—‘Also in this land (England), under the turf of the land, is good marl found. The thrift of the fatness drieth himself (itself) therein, so that even the thicker the field is marled, the better corn will it bear.’^[252] An old rhyme says:—

An interesting surname of this class is that of ‘Acreman,’ or, as it is now generally spelt, ‘Acherman,’ ‘Akerman,’ or ‘Aikman,’ for it is far from being of modern German introduction, as some have supposed. In the Hundred Rolls and elsewhere it appears in such entries as ‘Alexander le Acherman,’ ‘Roger le Acreman,’ ‘Peter le Akerman,’ and ‘John le Akurman.’ His was indeed a common and familiar sobriquet, and we are but once more reminded by it of the day when the acre was what it really denoted—the ager, or land open to tillage, without thought of definite or statute measure. Indeed, it is quite possible the term was at first strictly applied thus, for a contemporaneous poem has the following couplet:—

If this be the case the surname is but synonymous with ‘Plowman’ and ‘Tillman,’ already referred to.

A curious name is found in the writs of this period, and one well worthy of mention, that of ‘Adam le Imper.’ An ‘imp,’ I need scarcely remind the reader, was originally a ‘scion’ or ‘offshoot,’ whether of plants or animals, the former seemingly most common, to judge from instances. That nothing more than this was intended by it we may prove by Archbishop Trench’s quotation from Bacon, where he speaks of ‘those most virtuous and goodly young imps, the Duke of Suffolk and his brother.’^[253] Chaucer says that of

and ‘Piers Plowman’ uses the word still more explicitly—

he says. This latter quotation explains the surname. ‘Imper,’ doubtless, simply differed from ‘Gardiner’ or ‘Gardner’ in that he was more particularly engaged in the grafting of young shoots.

From the consideration of the last we may fitly turn to the subject of fruits. There can be no doubt that in early days, so far at least as the south, and more particularly the south-west of England was concerned, the vine was very generally cultivated by the peasantry, and the wine made therefrom, however poor it might be, used by them. So early as Domesday Survey a ‘Walter Vinitor’ lived in Surrey, and a century or two later such names as ‘Symon le Vynur,’ or ‘William le Viner,’ or ‘Roger le Vynour,’ the ancestry of our ‘Viners,’ show that the vine-dresser’s occupation was not yet extinct. We have long left the production of this beverage, however, to the sunnier champaign lands of the Continent, and are content by paying a higher price to get a richer and fuller juice. Our ‘Dressers’ may either belong to this or the curriers’ fraternity. An old poem, which I have already had occasion to quote, says—

We have here the mention of pears and apples. The cultivation of these by our ‘Orcharders,’ or ‘de la Orchards,’ or ‘de la Apelyards,’ was a familiar occupation, and ‘le Cyderer,’^[254] and ‘le Perriman,’ or ‘Pearman,’ and ‘le Perrer,’ testify readily as to the use to which they were put. The home-made drinks of these early days were almost all sweet. Such decoctions as mead, piment, or hippocras, in the absence of sugar, were mingled with honey. We can at once understand, therefore, what an important pursuit would that be of the bee-keeper.^[255] Not merely did the occasional husbandman possess his two or three hives, but there were those who gave themselves up wholly to the tendence of bees, and who made for themselves a comfortable livelihood in the sale of their produce. Many of our surnames still bear testimony to this. ‘Beman,’ or ‘Beeman,’ or ‘Beaman,’ will be familiar to all, and ‘Honeyman’ is scarcely less common. In an old roll of 1183 we have the name Latinised in such an entry as ‘Ralph Custosapium.’ But not merely honey, but spices of all kinds were also infused into these various drinks, whether of wine or ale. We have a well-drawn picture of this in Piers Plowman’s vision where ‘Glutton’ comes across Beton the Brewstere, and the latter bidding him good-morrow, says—

Such an array of hot ingredients as this poor Glutton could not resist, and instead of going to Mass he turned into the tavern, and having supped

of course got uproariously drunk. Thus we see how natural it is we should come across such names as ‘Balmer,’ or ‘le Oyncterer,’ or ‘le Hoincter,’ as it is also registered, or ‘le Garlyckmonger,’ in our early records. The first still exists. The second does not, but the cumbersome and ungainly appearance of the last affords sufficient excuse for its absence. It is quite possible, however, that our ‘Garlicks’ are but a curtailment of it, and this is the more likely, as such forms as ‘Henry le Garleckmonger,’ or ‘Thomas le Garlykmonger,’ are commonly found, and evidently represented an important occupation. The Normans, like the Saxons, loved a highly stimulative dish, and garlic sauce went to everything; bird, beast, fish, all alike found their seasoning in a concoction of which this acrid and pungent herb was the chief ingredient. ‘Roger le Gaderer,’ or as we should now say ‘Gatherer,’ has left no descendant, but he may be mentioned as representing a more general term for many of the above.

In the woodlands and its open glades and devious windings, where several of these herbalists I have mentioned would be often found, we shall see, too, other frequenters. It would be here, subject to the condition of agistment and pannage, our ‘Swinnarts,’ or swineherds, tended their hogs. It would be here by the hazel bank and deeper forest pathways our ‘Nutters’ and ‘Nutmans’ would be found, as the autumn began to set in, and browner and more golden tints to fleck the trees and hedgerows. It would be here, as the chills of early winter drew on, and the fallen leaves lay strewn around, our ‘Bushers’ or ‘Boshers’ (relics of the old ‘John le Busscher’ or ‘Reginald le Buscher’), and our more Saxon ‘Thomas le Woderes,’ ‘Robert Wudemongers,’ and ‘Alan le Wodemans’ (now ‘Woodyers’ and ‘Woodmans’), would be occupied in gathering the refuse branches for firing purposes—here our ‘Hewers’ (once found as ‘Ralph le Heuer’) and more specific ‘Robert le Wodehewers,’^[256] our ‘Hackers’ and ‘Hackmans,’ would be engaged in chopping timber, perchance for building purposes, perchance for our ‘Ashburners,’^[257] to procure their potash from. Oftentimes, no doubt, would these various frequenters of the woodland boscage be roused from their rude labours to watch as the hornblower (now ‘Hornblow’) awoke the shrill echoes, the lordly chase sweep through the glade till it was hidden by the embrasures of the forest, or the darkening twilight, or the bending hill.

One single glance backward over the names we have so far recorded in this chapter, and one thing will be obvious—their all but entirely Saxon character. Our agriculture terms, whether with regard to the work itself or the labourer, belong to the earlier tongue. There is nothing surprising in this. While in the nomenclature of trade we find the superior force and energy of the Norman temperament struggling with and oftentimes overcoming the more sober humour of the conquered race, in the country and all the pursuits of the country the latter was far ahead of its rival. It was better versed in agricultural pursuits, and ever retained them in its own hands. At the same time, as we well know, this very detention was but the mark of its defeat and the badge of its slavery. It was a victory where, nevertheless, all is lost. Wamba the jester, in ‘Ivanhoe,’ if I may be excused such a trite illustration, reminds us that our cattle, while in the field, and under the guardianship of the enslaved Saxon, were called by the Saxon terms of ‘ox,’ ‘sheep,’ and ‘calf,’ but served upon the tables of their lords became Norman ‘beef,’ ‘mutton,’ and ‘veal’—that is, while the former fed them, the latter it was that fed on them. Thus in the same way, if those homely pursuits which attached to the tilling of the soil, the breeding of cattle, the gathering in and the storing of the harvest—if these maintained the terms which belonged to them ere the Conquest, they are so many marks of serfdom. Provided the supply on his board was only profuse enough, the proud baron troubled himself little as to the supplier, or how or under what names it was procured. See how true this is from our nomenclature. There is a little word which has dropped from our lips which once played an important part in our vocabulary—I mean that of ‘herd’—not as applied to the flock, but the keeper. We still use it familiarly in compounds, such as swineherd or shepherd, but that it once had a separate existence of its own is proved by the many ‘Heards,’ or ‘Herds,’ or ‘Hurds,’ that still abound surnominally in our midst; relics as they are of the ‘John le Hirdes,’ or ‘Alice la Herdes,’ or ‘Robert le Hyrdes,’ of our olden records. Chaucer so uses it. We now speak of our Lord as the ‘Good Shepherd.’ He, however, gives us the simpler form where St. Urban is made to say—

Thus again, in the ‘Townley Mysteries’ the angel who visited the shepherds as they kept their flocks by night is represented as arousing them by saying—

See now the many compounds of which this purely Saxon word is the root. Are we in the low-lying pastures. In our ‘Stotherds’ and ‘Stothards,’ our ‘Stoddarts’ and ‘Stoddards,’ still clings the remembrance of the old stot or bullock-herd; in our ‘Yeatherds’ (as in our ‘Yeatmans’), the heifer herd; and in our ‘Cowards,’ far from being so pusillanimous as they look, the homely ‘cowherd.’ In ‘William and the Werfolf’ we are told—

Nor are these all. In our ‘Calverts’ and ‘Calverds’ we are reminded of the once well-known ‘Warin le Calveherd,’ or ‘William le Calverd,’ as I find him recorded; in our ‘Nuttards’ the more general but now faded ‘neteherd’ or ‘noutherd,’^[258] and in our obsolete ‘John Oxenhyrds’ and ‘Peter Oxherds,’ the familiar ox. Are we in the grazing paddock. In our ‘Coultherds,’ ‘Coulthards,’ and ‘Coultards’ (‘John Colthird,’ W. 9), not to mention our ‘Coultmans’ and ‘Coltmans,’ we have ample trace of their presence. Are we again on the bleak hill-side. The sheep have given us our ‘Shepherds,’ the rams our ‘Wetherherds’ (now generally written ‘Weatherheads’), the kids our ‘Gottards,’ not to say some of our ‘Goddards,’ memorials of the once common goatherd. Are we under the woodland pathways where the beech-nuts abound. There, too, the herd was to be found, for in our ‘Swinnarts,’ ‘Hoggarts,’ and ‘Sowards’ we are not without a further token of his usefulness. In three instances I have found ‘herd’ connected with the winged creation. In the Parliamentary Writs occurs ‘William le Swonherde,’ in the Corpus Christi Guild (Surt. Soc.), ‘Agnes Gusehyrd’ and ‘Joan Gusehyrd,’ and in the Hundred Rolls ‘Henry le Rocherde,’ i.e., rook-herd.^[259] ‘Swanherd’ reminds us that swans were an important article of diet in early times. In 1482 an Act was passed forbidding any but freeholders (and they only if they had lands of the annual value of five marks) to have marks or games of swans. (‘Stat. Realm,’ vol. ii. p. 447.)

It will have already become clear to the reader that this term ‘herd’ played no unimportant part in the vocabulary of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But even now we have not done. For instance, our ‘Stobbarts’ and ‘Stubbards’ are manifestly descendants of such a name as ‘Alice Stobhyrd’ or ‘Thomas Stobart,’ the owners of both of which are set down in the Black Book of Hexham Priory in company with ‘John Stodard,’ ‘William Oxhyrd,’ and ‘Thomas Schipherde.’^[260] I should have been in some difficulty in regard to the meaning of this ‘stob’ or ‘stub’ had not Mr. Halliwell in his dictionary of archaic words given it as an old rural term for a bull. This surname, therefore, is satisfactorily accounted for. I cannot be quite so positive with regard to our ‘Geldards’ and ‘Geldarts,’ but I strongly suspect their early ancestor was but a confrÈre of the swineherd or hogherd, ‘gelt,’ or ‘geld,’ as a porcine title, being a familiar word to our forefathers of that date. Our ‘Gattards’ and ‘Gathards,’ too, may be mentioned as but mediÆvalisms for the goatherd, ‘Gateard’ and ‘Gatherd’ being met with in North English records contemporaneously with the above. Such a sobriquet as ‘Adam le Gayt,’ while it may be but a form of the old ‘wayt’ or watchman, is, I imagine, but representative of this northern provincialism. It occurs locally in ‘William de Gatesden’ or ‘John de Gatesden,’ both found in the Parliamentary Writs. With two more instances I will conclude. In our ‘Hunnards’ still lives the memory of ‘Helyas le Hunderd,’ the old houndsman, while in ‘Richard le Wodehirde’ or ‘William le Wodehirde’ we have but another, though more general, sobriquet of one of those many denizens of the forest I have already hinted at. How purely Saxon are all these names! What a freshness seems to breathe about them! What a fragrance as of the wild heather and thyme, and all that is sweet and fresh and free! And yet they are but so many marks of serfdom.

I have just incidentally referred to the swineherd. It is difficult for us, in this nineteenth century of ours, to conceive the vast importance of this occupation in the days of which we are writing. Few avocations have so much changed as this. Hog-tending as a distinct livelihood is well-nigh extinct. Time was, however, when the rustic community lived upon bacon, when the surveillance of swine was a lazy, maybe, but nevertheless an all-important care. We still speak of a ‘flitch of bacon,’ a term which, while etymologically the same as ‘flesh,’ shows how to the early popular mind that article represented the sum total of carnal luxuries. Our use of the word ‘brawn’ is of an equally tell-tale character. Every one knows what we mean by brawn. Originally, however, it was the flesh of any animal. Chaucer says—

When, however, the wild boar had been brought down, and salted, and put aside for winter use, how natural that to the housewife it should engross this general sense. It is to the importance this unsavoury-looking animal held in the eyes of early rustics we must attribute the fact of so many names coming down to us connected with its keep. As I have just hinted, such sobriquets as ‘John le Swineherd’ or ‘Nicholas le Hogherd’ were common enough in the country parts, our ‘Swinnarts’ and ‘Hoggarts’ being witnesses. The sowherd remains in our ‘Sowards,’ and is as Saxon as the others. The same tongue is strong again in our ‘Pigmans’ ‘Sowmans,’ ‘Hogmans,’ and still more secluded ‘Denyers’ and ‘Denmans.’ The Norman, however, is to be accredited with our many ‘Gilbert le Porchers’ and ‘Thomas le Porkeres,’ by which we may see that when daintily served up under the name of ‘pork’ it was not disdained on the baron’s table. Lastly, we may mention our early ‘Philip le Lardiners’ and ‘Hugh le Lardiners,’ names that in themselves suggest to us the one purpose of the herdsman, the fattening of his charge. They would be found generally, therefore, neath the fastnesses of the forest, where the

and where the mast and beech-nuts abounded, the chief pannage, it would seem, of that day.^[261] Higher up, as far indeed as the bleak and barren wolds, the shepherd cared for and tended his flock. His was a common occupation, too, as our nomenclature shows. Evidently he was as prone in those days to the oaten reed as the poets of all ages have loved to depict him, for it is to his Norman-introduced name of ‘Berger’ we owe the ‘bergeret,’ or pastoral ode. The song indeed, so called, has died away from our ears, but ‘Berger,’ or ‘Bercher,’ as it was often written, still lives, and may carry us back for a moment to these wholesomer times.

Nor, if we approach more closely to the farmyard enclosure, are we without memorials. The farm of old, as applied to the soil, was of course that piece of land which was rented for agricultural purposes, and I doubt not the chief of the old ‘Robert le Fermers’ and ‘Matilda le Fermeres’ represent this more confined sense. ‘Farmer,’ whether colloquially or in our registers, is the modern form. Udal, however, maintains the more antique dress, when he says, ‘And that the thyng should so be, Chryst Hymself had signyfied to fore by the parable of the husbandmen or fermers.’

While ‘herd,’ as a root-word, implied the tendance of cattle in the meadows and woods and on the hillsides, ‘man,’ I suspect, was equally significative of their guardianship in the stable and the yard. Thus if the ‘cowherd’ was in the field, the ‘cowman’ would be in the stall. We may here, therefore, set our familiar ‘Cowmans,’ ‘Bullmans,’ ‘Heiffermans,’ and ‘Steermans,’ or ‘Stiermans.’^[262] One or two provincialisms, I imagine, have added also to this stock. Mr. Lower thinks our ‘Twentymans’ to be derived from ‘Vintenarius,’ a captain of twenty. This may be so, but I suspect the more correct origin will be found in ‘twenterman’ or ‘twinterman,’ he who tended the ‘twenters’ or ‘twinters,’ the old and once familiar ‘two-winter,’ or, as we now generally say, ‘two-year-old.’ If the ‘steer,’ the ‘heifer,’ the ‘cow,’ and the ‘bull’ gave a sobriquet to the farm labourer, why not this? As a farmyard term it occurs in every provincial record of the fifteenth and even sixteenth century. Thus, to quote but one instance, I find in a will dated 1556 mention made of ‘6 oxen, item, 18 sterres (steers), item, 11 heifers, item, 21 twenters, item, 23 stirks.’ (Richmondshire Wills, p. 93.) An inventory of the same date includes ‘3 kye, item, one whye.’ This latter term was equally commonly used at this period for a ‘heifer.’ Our ‘Whymans’ and ‘Wymans’ will, we may fairly surmise, be their present memorial. ‘Cowman,’ mentioned above, was met by the Norman ‘Vacher,’ such entries as ‘John le Vacher’ or ‘Walter le Vacher’ being common, and as ‘Vacher,’ or more corruptly ‘Vatcher,’ it still abides in our midst. ‘Thomas le Stabeler,’ or ‘William le Stabler,’ too, are yet with us; but descendants for ‘Thomas le Milkar’ or ‘William le Melker’ are, I fear, wanting. A Norman representative for these latter is found in the Parliamentary Writs in the case of ‘John le Lacter.’ There is the smack of a kindred labour in the registered ‘Thomas le Charner,’ for I doubt not his must have been but an antique dress of ‘Churner.’ Another form is found in an old Richmondshire will dated 1592, where mention is made of ‘Robert Chirner’ and his sister ‘Jane Chirner.’ As an additional proof that his occupation was such as I have surmised, I may add that in the same record in the valuation of household property the churn is spelt chirne. (Richmondshire Wills, p. 235, note.) The most interesting sobriquet of this class, and the one which has left the most memorials, is found in such mediÆval names as ‘Cecilia le Day,’ or ‘Christiana la Daye,’ or ‘Stephen le Dagh.’ A ‘day’ was a dairyman, of which word it is but another form. Chaucer, in one of the most charming of his descriptions, tells us of a poor widow, how that she—

The present representatives of this name are met with in the several forms of ‘Deye,’ ‘Daye,’ ‘Day,’ ‘Dayman,’ and the more unpleasantly corrupted ‘Deman.’

It is quite evident, judging from the places of abode in which we find our early ‘Fishers’ and ‘Fishermans,’ that it is to followers, though professional, of the quaint and gentle-minded Izaac Walton we owe our many possessors of these names, rather than to the dwellers upon the coast, although both, doubtless, are represented. Such entries as ‘Margaret le Fischere,’ or ‘Henry le Fissere,’ or ‘Robert le Fiscere’ are very common. This latter seems a sort of medium between the others and such a more hard form as ‘Laurence le Fisker.’ The finny species themselves gave us such sobriquets as ‘John le Fysche’ or ‘William Fyske,’ and both ‘Fish’ and ‘Fisk’ still exist amongst us. The Norman angler is seen in ‘Godard le Pescher’ or ‘Walter le Pecheur,’ while ‘Agnes le Pecheresse’ bespeaks the fact that even women did not disdain the gentle art.

But the moment we hint of the village streamlet we are thrown upon a subject vast indeed—the mill and the miller. He was emphatically, you see, the miller. Even now, in these busy grasping days, when we have cotton mills and saw mills, silk mills and powder mills, mills for this and mills for that, still it never occurs to us, when we talk of the miller, that any one could possibly mistake our meaning. And well may it be so, for it is with him we entwine pleasant remembrances of the country, the wheel, the stream, the lusty dimpled trout; with him we associate all of comfortable, peaceful content. A white jacket and a white cap, with a black coat for Sundays—how black it would look to be sure—a bluff, good-humoured face, a friendly nod, and a blithe good-morrow, up early and to bed betimes, and his memoir is written, and a very pleasant memoir, too, with a moral to boot for discontented folk, would they but see it. The old word for mill was ‘milne,’ hence we still have the earlier form, ‘Milnes’ and ‘Milner’ being nearly as familiar to us in that respect as ‘Mills’ and ‘Miller.’ Besides these we have ‘Milman’ and ‘Milward,’ who once, no doubt, acted as custodian, the modern ‘man on the premises,’ in fact.^[264] The ancestry of all these is proved by such registered forms as ‘John le Mellere,’ ‘William le Melner,’ ‘Robert le Milleward,’^[265] ‘John del Mill,’ or ‘Thomas atte Milne,’ all of which are found scattered over our earlier rolls.^[266] Our ‘Threshers’ and ‘Taskers’ (Benedict le Tasker,’ H.R.) busied themselves in urging the flail. I have only lit upon the latter term once as in ordinary colloquial use. Burton in the preface to his ‘Anatomy’ says—‘many poor country-vicars, for want of other means, are driven to their shifts,’ and ‘as Paul did, at last turn taskers, maltsters, costermongers, graziers, etc.’^[267] Our ‘Winners,’ shortened from ‘Winnower,’ winnowed the grain with the fan; our ‘Boulters’ or ‘Bulters,’^[268] ‘Siviers’ and ‘Riddlers,’ (‘Geoffrey le Boltere,’ A., ‘William Rydler,’ Z., ‘Ralph le Siviere,’ A.), still more carefully separated the flour from the bran. How beautifully Shakespeare presses this into his imagery many will remember, where Florizel speaks of—

Our Bible translators, too, must have yet been familiar with the simpler process of this earlier time when they rendered one of the prophet’s happier foretellings into the beautiful Saxon we still possess:—‘The oxen likewise, and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.’ The manufacture or use of the fan wherewith to purge the flour made our ‘Walter le Vanners,’ ‘Simon le Fanneres,’ ‘Richard atte Vannes,’ or ‘William atte Fannes,’ familiar names at this time. In Cocke Lorelle’s Bote, we find among other craftsmen—

We must not forget, too, our ‘Shovellers’ and more common ‘Showlers,’ ‘showl’ being ever the vulgar form. It was for no purpose of rhyme, only the word is so used where we are asked—

With these many reminders, it is not likely that either the miller or his men are likely to become soon forgotten.

The smithy, of course, was an inseparable adjunct to the small community. The smith, unlike the wright, was engaged upon the harder metals, the latter being incidentally described to us by Chaucer when he says of one of his personages in the Reeves Story, that—

Looking at the many compounds formed from these two roots, we find that in the main this distinction is maintained. Let us take the wright first. We have but just mentioned ‘Ralph le Siviere,’ or ‘Peter le Syvyere.’ For him our ‘Sivewrights’ were manifestly occupied, to say nothing of the farmer’s wife. The farmer himself would need the services of our ‘Plowwrights’ (‘William le Plowritte,’ A., ‘William le Ploughwryte,’ M.), and would he carry his produce safely to the distant market or fair he must needs have a good stout wain, for the track athwart the hillside was rough and uneven, and here therefore he must call into requisition the skill of our many ‘Wheelwrights,’ or ‘Wheelers,’ ‘Cartwrights’ and their synonymous ‘Wainwrights.’^[269] Adding to these ‘Boatwright,’ or ‘Botwright,’ ‘Shipwright,’ and the obsolete ‘Slaywright,’ the old loom manufacturer, we see wood to have been the chief object at least of the wright’s attention. But we have other names of a different character. ‘Limewright’ or ‘Limer’ (‘Hugh le Limwryte,’ A., ‘John le Limer,’ A.) ceases to maintain this distinction, so do our ‘Glasswrights,’ equivalent to our ‘Glaziers’ or ‘Glaishers’ (‘Thomas le Glaswryghte,’ X., ‘Walter Glasenwryht,’ W. ii., ‘William Glaseer,’ Z.).^[270] ‘Le Cheesewright,’ or ‘Chesswright,’ like ‘Firminger’ and ‘Casier,’ brings us once more into the scullery, and ‘Breadwright’ into the kitchen. ‘Alwright’ is doubtless but the old ‘alewright,’ and ‘Goodwright,’ which Mr. Lower deems to be a maker of goads, I cannot but imagine to be simply complimentary, after the fashion of many others which I shall mention in another chapter. Our ‘Tellwrights’ or ‘Telwrights’ have given me much trouble, and though at first I did not like it, I think Mr. Lower’s suggestion that they have arisen from the Pauline occupation of tent-making is a natural one. ‘Teld’ was the old English word for a tent. In the metrical Anglo-Saxon Psalter the fourteenth psalm thus commences—

We still speak of a ‘tilt’ when referring to the cover of a cart or wagon, or to any small awning of a boat. It is quite possible, therefore, that the name has originated in the manufacture of such canopies as these. Admitting this, I would merely suggest ‘Tilewright’ as requiring but little corruptive influence to bring it into the forms in which we at present find the word.^[271] Should this be the case, we must place it with ‘le Tyler,’ of whom we have but recently spoken. ‘Arkwright’ I mention last as being worthy of more extended notice. In this is preserved the memory of a once familiar and all-important piece of cabinet furniture—that of the old-fashioned ark. Much store was set by this long years ago by the north-country folk, as is shown by the position it occupies in antique wills, often being found as the first legacy bequeathed.^[272] Shaped exactly like the child’s Noah’s ark, it seems to have had a twofold character. In one it was simply a meal-bin. Thus in the ‘Tale of a Usurer’ we are told:—

In the other it was more carefully put together. The trick of its secret spring, known only to the housewife and her lord—sometimes I dare say, only to the latter—it contained all the treasure the family could boast. Here were kept what parchments they possessed; here lay stored up fold on fold of household linen, venerated by the female inmates nearly as much as the grandmothers themselves, whose thrifty fingers had woven it in days long past and gone. We see thus that upon the whole the wright wrought his manufacture out of his own more specific material, seldom, at any rate, poaching upon the preserves of his friend the smith. The smith worked in iron and the metals. This good old Saxon name, with the many quaint changes that have been rung upon it, deserves a whole chapter to itself. How then can we hope to do justice to it in a few sentences? We do not know where to begin, and having once begun, the difficulty at once arises as to where we can end. How few of us reflect upon the close connexion that exists between the anvil and the smith himself, and yet it is because he smote thereupon that he got his name. As old Verstigan has it:—

Putting in all the needs which in this agricultural age his occupation would be necessary to supply, still we could scarcely account for the enormous preponderance he has attained over other artisans, did we not remember that his services would also be required in the production of warlike implements. Sword and ploughshare alike would be to his hands. Chaucer speaks of:—

Between and including the years 1838 and 1854 there were registered as born, or married, or dead, no less than 286,307 Smiths. Were we indeed to put into one community the persons who bear this name in our land, we should have a town larger than Leeds, and scarcely inferior in size and importance to that of the capital of the midland counties.

The smith is often spoken of colloquially as the blacksmith, a title which, while it has not itself a place in our nomenclature, reminds us of others that have, and of a peculiar custom of earlier days. The word ‘blacksmith’ dates from the days of ‘Cocke Lorelle’s Bote,’ and it is quite evident that at that time it was customary for the smith to have his name compounded with sobriquets according to the colour of the metal upon which he spent his energies. Thus the former ‘Thomas Brownesmythe’ evidently worked in copper and brass, ‘William le Whytesmyth’ in tinplate, ‘John Redesmith’ in gold, a ‘Goldsmith’ in fact; ‘Richard Grensmythe’ in I am not sure what, unless it be lead; and ‘John Blackesmythe’ in iron. The last is the only one I fail to discover as now existing among our surnames—a circumstance, however, easily accounted for from the settled position the simple ‘Smith’ himself had obtained as an artificer of that metal. But these are not the only compounds. Our ‘Smiths’ are surrounded with connexions of not merely every hue, but every type. Thus ‘Arrowsmith,’ already alluded to with its contracted ‘Arsmith,’ tells its own tale of archery service; ‘Billsmith’ and ‘Spearsmith’ remind us of the lances, or rather lance heads, that did such duty in the golden days of Agincourt and Poictiers. Of a more peaceful nature would be the work of our ‘Nasmyths,’ like our ‘Naylors,’ mere relics of the old nailsmith. Closely connected with them, therefore, we may set our ‘Shoosmiths,’^[273] but Saxon representatives of the Norman-introduced ‘Farrier.’ The surname still clings chiefly to the north of England, where the Saxon, retaining so much more of its strength and vigour than in the south, preserved it as the occupative term for centuries. Springtide and the approach of sheep-washing would see our ‘Sheersmiths’ busy, while the later autumn would have its due effect upon the trade of our ‘Sixsmiths’ and ‘Sucksmiths,’ pleasant though curiously corrupted memorials of the old sicklesmith, or ‘Sykelsmith,’ as I find the name spelt. The bucklesmith (‘John le Bokelsmythe,’ X.), whose name is referred to in the poem I have but recently quoted, has similarly and as naturally curtailed himself to ‘Bucksmith.’^[274] Our ‘Bladesmiths’ fashioned swords, being found generally in fellowship with our ‘Cutlers’ and obsolete ‘Knyfesmythes.’ Our ‘Locksmiths,’ of course, looked to the security of door, and closet, and cupboard;^[275] while our ‘Minsmiths’ (‘John le Mynsmuth,’ M.), for I believe they are not as yet quite obsolete, hard at work in the mint smithy, forged the coin for the early community. As, however, I shall have occasion to refer to him again I shall merely cite him, and pass on.^[276] But we may see from the little I have said that the smith never need fear obsoletism. Apart from his own immediate circle, he is surrounded by many, if not needy, yet closely attached relatives. We must not forget, however, that the Norman had his smith, too, and though the Saxon, as we have thus seen, has ever maintained his dignity and position, still our early rolls are not without a goodly number of ‘Adam le Fevres,’ ‘Richard le Fevers,’ or ‘Reginald le Feures,’ and their cognate ‘Alan le Ferons’ and ‘Roger le Feruns.’ Representatives of all these, minus the article, may be readily met with to-day in any of the large towns of our country.

We may take this opportunity of saying a word about lead, inasmuch as the uses to which it was put made the manufacturer therein familiar to rural society. The leadbeater, in fact, was all-important to the farmer’s wife and the dairy, for the vessels which held the milk, as it underwent its various processes until it was turned out into butter, were commonly his handiwork. Such names as ‘Gonnilda le Leadbetre,’ or ‘Reginald le Ledbeter,’ we find in every considerable roll, and our modern ‘Leadbeaters,’ ‘Ledbetters,’ ‘Leadbitters,’ ‘Lidbetters,’ and probably ‘Libertys,’ are but their descendants. That mixture of lead with brass or copper which went by the term of ‘latten’ or ‘laton’ has left in our ‘Latoners’ and ‘Latners’ a memorial of the metal of which our old country churchyard tablets were made, not to say some of the household utensils just referred to. We find even more costly and ornamental ware manufactured of this, for among other relics preserved by the pardoner, Chaucer tells us:—

Such a name then as ‘Thomas le Latoner’ or ‘Richard le Latoner’ would be well understood by our forefathers.

But we must not wander. In nothing does our nomenclature bequeath us a more significant record than in that which relates to the isolation of primitive life. We who live in such remarkable days of locomotive appliance cannot possibly enter into the difficulties our forefathers had to encounter in regard to intercommunication. An all but impassable barrier separated our villages from the larger and distant towns. The roads, or rather, not to dignify them by such a term, the tracks,^[277] were sometimes scarce to be recognised, everywhere rough and dangerous. Streams, oftentimes much swollen, must be forded. Where bridges existed our ‘Bridgers’ and ‘Bridgemans’ took the king’s levy; where none were to be found our ‘Ferrimans’ rendered their necessary aid. The consequent difficulties with regard to conveyance were great. The larger of the county towns carried on but an uncertain and irregular communication, while the remoter villages were wholly dependent either on the travelling trader or peddler, or on the great fair, as it came round in its annual course. What a stock of goods would be laid in by the bustling wife, and the farmer himself on this latter occasion! Imagine them starting forth to lay in a supply for a whole year’s wants. No wonder the good, sound cob and the stout wagon it drew are remembered in our surnames. Of the importance of the former such names as ‘Horsman,’ if it be not official, and ‘Palfreyman,’ or ‘Palfriman,’ not to mention ‘Asseman,’ are good witnesses. Such entries as ‘Agnes le Horsman,’ or ‘Roger le Palefreyour,’ or ‘John le Palfreyman’ are familiar to every early register. Our ‘Tranters’ and ‘Traunters’ are but relics of the old ‘Traventer,’ he who let out posthorses. In process of time, however, he got numbered among the many itinerant peddlers or carriers, of whom I shall speak shortly. Bishop Hall, in one of his Satires, says—

Our ‘Corsers’^[278] or ‘Cossers,’ too, little altered from the former ‘le Corsour,’ represent, as did the obsolete ‘Horsmonger,’ the dealer in horseflesh. Another branch of this occupation is represented by our ‘Runchemans,’ ‘Runcimans,’ or ‘Runchmans.’ They dealt in hackney-horses, ‘rounce’ or ‘rouncie’ being the then general term for such. Chaucer’s ‘Shipman’ was mounted upon one—

It was, however, a term applied in common to all manner of horses, and it is quite possible the names given above must be classed simply with ‘Horseman’ and such like. Brunne, in describing Arthur’s Coronation, mentions among other his gifts—

In such grand-looking entries as ‘William le Charreter,’ or ‘John le Caretter,’ or ‘Andrew le Chareter,’^[280] we should now scarce recognise the humble ‘Carter,’ but so is he commonly set down in the thirteenth century, our ‘cart’ itself being nothing more than the old Norman-French ‘charette,’ so familiarized to us by our present Bible version as ‘chariot.’ This in the edition of 1611 even was spelt after the old fashion as ‘charet.’ Our ‘Charters’ are evidently but relics of the fuller form, a ‘John le Charter’ appearing in the Parliamentary Writs.^[281] ‘Char,’ the root of ‘charet,’ still remains with us as ‘car.’ In ‘Cursor Mundi’ it is said—

Gower, too, has the word—

This was used by people of rank as a fashionable vehicle for purposes of pleasure; oftentimes, too, by ladies.^[282] Corresponding with the other, the driver of such was ‘John le Charer’ or ‘Richard le Charrer,’ the present existing forms in our directories being ‘Charman’ and ‘Carman.’^[283] ‘Cartman,’ I need not add, is also found as well as ‘Carter.’ All these terms, however, are from the Norman vocabulary. The Saxon word in general use was ‘wagon’ or ‘wain,’ the conductor of which now dwells in our midst as ‘Wagoner’ or ‘Wagner,’ and ‘Wainman’ or ‘Wenman.’ ‘Charles Wain’ or the ‘Churls Wain’ is the name that constellation still bears, and which has clung to it, in spite of the Norman, since the day, a thousand years and more, that the Saxon so likened it. As in the case of so many other double words representative of our twofold language, these two separate terms have come now to denote their own specialty of vehicle, and it is even possible that so early as the day in which ‘le Wainwright’ and ‘le Cartwright’ took their rise this distinction had already begun to exist. It is thus our English language has become so rich, this sheep-and-mutton redundancy of which Walter Scott in his ‘Ivanhoe’ has so well reminded us. ‘Richard le Drivere’ or ‘John le Drivere’ of course must be placed here, not to mention an ‘Alice le Driveress,’ who figures in the Hundred Rolls.

Of such consequence was it that the horse-gear should be carefully put together that it occupied the full attention of several different artisans. Such names as ‘Benedict le Sporier,’ or ‘Alan le Lorymer,’ or ‘Nicholas le Lorimer,’ are found in every considerable roll of the period, and they still exist. The one of course looked to the rowel, the other to the bit. ‘John le Sadeler’ needs little explanation, his posterity being still alive to speak in his behalf. The old Norman-introduced word for a saddle was ‘sell,’ and that it lingered on for a considerable period is shown by Spenser’s use of it, where he says—

Every mediÆval roll has its ‘Warin le Seler’ or ‘Thomas le Seller.’^[284] The pack-saddle was of such importance that it required a special manufacturer, and this it had in our now somewhat rare ‘Fusters’ or ‘Fewsters.’^[285] In his ‘Memorials of London,’ Mr. Riley mentions a ‘Walter Polyt, fuyster’ (p. xxii.). A fuster was, strictly speaking, a joiner employed in the manufacture of the saddle-bow, that is, the wooden framework of the old saddle. It is derived from the French ‘fust,’ wood, and that from the late Latin ‘fustis.’ Our ‘Shoosmiths,’ as I have before hinted, made the horseshoe, while ‘John le Mareshall,’ or ‘Ranulph le Marescal,’ or ‘Osbert le Ferrur,’ or ‘Peter le Ferrour,’ fitted it to the foot. The modern forms are simple ‘Marshall,’ and ‘Ferrier,’ or ‘Ferrer.’ In the ‘Boke of Curtasye’ it is said—

Nothing could be more natural than that the shoeing-forge should become associated with the doctoring of horseflesh, but it is somewhat strange that when we now speak of a farrier we recognise in this old term^[286] simply and only the horse-leech. So full of changes are the lives of words, as well as places and people.

A curious insight into mediÆval travel is presented to our notice in our ‘Ostlers’ and ‘Oastlers’ and ‘Oslers,’ relics of such old registries as ‘Ralph le Hostiler’ or ‘William le Ostiller.’ This term, once applied, as it rightly should, to the ‘host’ or ‘hosteller’ himself, has now become confined to the stableman, thus incidentally reminding us how important this part of the hostel duties would be at such a time as I am endeavouring to describe. The idea of the hosteller being one whose especial office it was to tend that which was their sole means of locomotion, thus in time resolved itself into a distinct name for that branch of his occupation.^[287] The old ‘Herberjour’ gave lodging, whence it is we get our ‘arbour.’ Our kings and barons in their journeys always kept an officer so termed, whose duty it was to go before and prepare and make ready for their coming. Owing to the large number of household attendants for whom lodging was required, this was an important and responsible duty. Thus has arisen our ‘harbinger,’ so often poetically applied to the sun as heralding the approach of day. The older spelling is preserved in the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ where it is said—

It is, however, as applied to lodging-house keepers our many enrolled ‘Herbert le Herberjurs,’ ‘Roger le Herberers,’ ‘William le Herbers,’ or ‘Richard le Harebers,’ are met with, and I doubt not our ‘Harbers’ and ‘Harbours’ are their offspring. In this sense the word is used by our mediÆval writers in all its forms, whether verb, or adjective, or substantive. Tyndale’s version of Romans xii. 13 is, ‘Be ready to harbour,’ where we now have it ‘given to hospitality.’ Bishop Coverdale, speaking of the grave, says—‘There is the harborough of all flesh; there lie the rich and the poor in one bed’ (Fruitful Lessons). He adds also, in another place, that Abraham was ‘liberal, merciful, and harborous’—i.e., ready to entertain strangers (The Old Faith). Bradford, too, to give but one more quotation, prays God may ‘sweep the houses of our hearts, and make them clean, that they may be a worthy harborough and lodging for the Lord’ (Bradford’s Works). Market Harborough still preserves this old word and its true sense from being forgotten. With the bearers, therefore, of the above names we may ally our ‘Inmans’ and ‘Taverners.’ The latter term is frequently found in early writings, and was evidently in ordinary use for the occupation—

While, however, the tavern has undergone but little change, the inn has. With our present Bible an inn is ever a lodging, and this was once the sole idea the term conveyed. It was not for casual callers by day, but for lodgers by night. Thus Chaucer in his ‘Knight’s Tale’ uses the verb—

Until the fair or wake came on, as I have said, the community in the more retired nooks and corners of the country depended entirely on the mounted merchant. He it was who conveyed to them the gossip of the time. He it was, or one of his confrÈres, that brought them everything which in those days went under the category of small luxuries. The more lonely parts of the highway were infested by robbers. Hence the pack-horsemen and other mounted traders generally travelled in company, with jingling bell and belted sword—a warning to evil-minded roadsters. This was all the more necessary as they but seldom kept to the main thoroughfare. A straight line between the adjacent hamlets best describes their course. Such local terms as ‘Pedlar’s Way,’ or ‘Pedder’s Way,’ or ‘Copmansford,’ still found in various parts of the country, are but interesting memorials of the direct and then lonely route these itinerant traders took in passing from one village to another. The number of these roadsters we cannot otherwise speak of than as that of a small army. Many of them, so far as our nomenclature is concerned, are now obsolete, but not a few still survive. Amongst those of a more general character we find ‘Sellman’ or ‘Selman.’^[288] From the old verb ‘to pad,’ which is still used colloquially in many districts, for the sober and staid pace the pack-horsemen preserved, we get our ‘Padmans’ and ‘Pedlers,’ or ‘Pedlars,’ once inscribed as ‘William le Pedeleure’ or ‘Thomas le Pedeler.’ It is of kin to ‘path.’ We still talk of a ‘footpad,’ who not more than two centuries ago would also have been spoken of as a ‘padder.’ So late as 1726 Gay, in one of his ballads, says—

Perchance of similar origin, but more probably from the old ‘ped,’ the basket they carried, are our ‘Pedders,’ ‘Peddars,’ and ‘Pedmans.’ ‘Martin le Peddere’ or ‘Hugh le Pedder’ or ‘William Pedman’ was a common entry at this time. On many parts of the English coast a fish-basket is still familiarly known as a ‘ped,’ and Mr. Halliwell, I see, quotes from another writer a statement to the effect that in Norwich, up to a recent day, or even now, an assemblage whither women bring their small wares of eggs, chickens, and other farm produce for sale, is called a ‘ped-market.’ It is likely, therefore, that with these we must ally ‘Godewyn le Hodere’ or ‘John le Hottere,’ who derived their sobriquets, I doubt not, from the fact of their carrying their hods or panyers on their backs, just as masons do now those wooden trays for mortar which bear the same name.^[289] Their very titles remind us that our ‘Huckers,’ ‘Hawkers,’ and ‘Hucksters,’ relics of the old ‘William le Huckere,’ ‘Simon le Hauckere,’ or ‘Peter le Huckster,’ were from the first good at haggling and chaffering wherever a bargain was concerned. Our ‘Kidders,’ the ‘William le Kyderes’ of the fourteenth century, were of a similar type, whatever their origin, which is doubtful. Probably, however, we must refer them to the ‘kid’ or ‘kit,’ the rush-plaited basket they carried their goods in. We still speak of ‘the whole kit of them,’ meaning thereby the collective mass of any set of articles.^[290] This view is strengthened—we might almost say proved—by the fact of a ‘Robert Butrekyde’ being found in the Hundred Rolls of this period. This would be a sobriquet given to some one from the basket he was wont to bear to and from the country market where he carried on his calling. Later on we find it used for a large mug or bowl. In the ‘Farming Book of Henry Best,’ written in 1641, we find it said—‘Some will cutte their cake and putte (it) into the creame, and this feast is called the creame-potte or creame-kitte’ (p. 93). The kidder’s usual confrÈre was the ‘Badger’—up to the seventeenth century an ordinary term for one who had a special licence to purchase corn from farmers at the provincial markets and fairs, and then dispose of it again elsewhere without the penalties of engrossing. It is generally said the sobriquet arose from the habits of the four-legged animal of that name in stealing and storing up the grain. The more probable solution, however, is that it is but a corruption of ‘baggager,’ from his method of carriage.

But we must not forget in our list of early English strolling merchants that the wandering friars themselves were oftentimes to be met with bearing treasure wherewith to tempt the housewife, and no bad bargainers, if we may accept the statement made against them by an old political song:—

Our ‘Tinklers’ and ‘Tinkers,’ like our more northern ‘Cairds,’ seem to have been scarcely removed in degree from the strolling gipsies. They acquired their name from the plan they adopted of heralding their coming by striking a kettle, a plan of attracting attention more euphoniously practised by our bellmen, with whom we are still familiar. Such names as ‘Alice Tynkeller’ in the fourteenth century, or ‘Peter le Teneker’ found in the thirteenth century, show how early had this method been adopted and the sobriquet given.^[292] Last, but not least, come our ‘Chapman’ or ‘Copeman’^[293] and ‘Packman.’^[294] The former is sometimes met with as ‘Walter’ or ‘John le Chepman,’ which at once reminds us of his origin, that of the ‘cheap-man,’ or ‘cheap-jack,’ as we should now style him. The old ‘cheaping,’ or ‘chipping,’ a market-place, still lingers locally in such place-names as ‘Chipping-Norton,’ or ‘Chipping-Camden,’ or the local surname ‘Chippendale;’ and the verb ‘to chop’—i.e., to purchase, I believe, is not yet extinct amongst us. The once common phrase for selling and exchanging was ‘chopping and changing.’ Coverdale uses it. Speaking of Christ driving out the money-changers from the Temple, he says, ‘The Temple was ordained for general prayer, thanksgiving, and preaching, and not for chopping and changing, or other such like things’ (The Old Faith). Thus the term ‘chapman’ would be no unmeaning one to our forefathers. But we must give him a paragraph to himself.

The chapman, you must know, was a great man. According to more modern usage, he had a fixed residence, but we may still see him at times, after the olden fashion, travelling about in a large booth-like conveyance or rumble. This vehicular mode of transit set him far above the rank of ordinary footpads. He was a sort of pedlar in high life, in fact, and if his position was lofty, his abilities were generally equal to a performance of its duties. O the sensation his arrival caused! The village green was instantly instinct with life. From impossible nooks and crannies surged forth a small army of all ages. Hoarded pennies or twopennies were drawn forth from cherished hiding-places, and flinty maternal pockets were for the nonce assailed with comparative success. To the young folks it was the next best thing to Punchinello, the chapman was so funny. Besides, he had so many things wherewith to tempt their juvenile fancy. What was there he had not? Everything that could under any lax code of fancy possibly or impossibly come under the all-expansive term of hardware was crowded within the magic recesses of that chapman’s van. Dolls and dishes, scissors and hats, cornplasters and cosmetics, lollipops in the shape of soldiers, and lollipops in the shape of windmills issued forth in a succession as insinuating to the purse as it was tempting to the imagination. And what a man was Jack himself; he had a joke for everyone, a frown for none. His face was an ever-changing picture, bluffed by the wind and burnt by the sun; still it was ever cheery withal, now demure, half waggish, half impudent, anon all benevolence as he details the merits of his latest painless corn-suppressing plaster, and assures the gaping swains that his sole object in life, since the happy moment when he first became acquainted with its virtues, has been to carry through the world the blissful tidings to suffering man. All this, he adds, with reckless impudence, has been done at a great personal pecuniary sacrifice; but an approving conscience, and the blessings showered upon his head by the recipients of his generosity, have been his ample reward. Of course they sell like wildfire, and the profits are enormous.^[295]

Our ‘Packmans,’ ‘Paxmans,’ and perhaps ‘Packers,’ were, as a rule, the village commissioners.^[296] What a simple and homely state of life do their names suggest. No half-hourly omnibus, or still more frequent train, whisked off the bustling housewife to the big town—now some sleepy old place with grass-grown streets, and half a century behind the times, where ‘news much older than the ale goes round’—but then the thrifty emporium of cheese and butter and such like stores, and great in the eyes of country bumpkins. No; if you visited the town in those days you must make a day of it. And the mistress knew better than do this. Leave her dairy, forsooth—what would become of the cream if she left Malkin to forget her work, and talk with Giles the cowboy behind the stable door all morning? She leave, indeed! Of course she could not, so there was the pack-horseman, who for a trifling commission went to and from the market for her and her neighbours. As he returned in the cool of the evening, when the sun was low and work over, you might see him pausing awhile at the door of the farmsteads, long after he has given the mistress her store, and, more slily, Malkin her ribbon. He is in no hurry now, for he is telling the country folk all the news; how the great world is wagging, and how there has been a great battle with the Frenchers some six or eight weeks ago (news, good or bad, did not travel fast in those days). The Frenchmen are looked upon by the simple rustics as the very impersonification of iniquity, they being under a sort of impression that a Frenchman is a being who defies God and man alike, and would think no bones of eating you up. At once the packman is plied for a full, true, and particular account of the battle, and he, there being none to gainsay his description, and with an eye probably to the good wife’s best ale, which, as he well knows from experience, will be brought forth with a freedom of hospitality proportionate to the horror of the details, fills up a bloody tale with sundry touches of a most tragic character, while the country folk gape in wide-mouthed terror, and the old grandmother cries ‘Lord, ha’ mercy on us!’ His face is lost to sight once more in the ale jug, and then he passes on to other steads, where a similar scene and a similar reward await his thirsty soul. Another name in evident use for the packman was that of ‘Sumpter,’ ‘Martin le Someter’ or ‘William le Sumeter’ being common entries at this time. We are still familiar with the term as applied to the mule or horse that carried the baggage, but in a personal sense it has long been extinct,^[297] saving in our directories, where as ‘Sumpter’ and ‘Sumter’ it is by no means seldom met with. How large a load these animals were required to bear we may picture to ourselves from a verse found in ‘Percy’s Reliques’—

But useful as were all these various itinerants, it was at the great yearly wakes or fairs, held in commemoration of the church dedication, that the housekeepers round laid in their greatest store. The term ‘wake’ denotes ‘a watching,’ because of the vigil observed during the night preceding the festival itself. Indeed ‘wake’ and ‘watch’ were for centuries synonymous words.^[298] Wicklyffe translates Mark xii. 37—‘Forsooth, that that I say to you, I say to all, Wake ye.’^[299] Thus it is that our ‘Wakemans’ are but memorials of the old village guardian or night watchman, while our ‘Wakes’ can boast a title dating so far back as the time when ‘Hereward the Wake,’ or Watchful, was fighting the last battle of the down-trodden and oppressed Saxon.^[300] These fairs were by no means for mere pleasure-seekers, as we might imagine from such a term as ‘church-ale,’ or judging by the aspect of such festivals in the present day. They had an end to answer, and an important end, and in early times they fulfilled it. It was here the farmers round brought their produce, ready to sell their wool for good sound money, or to exchange it for commodities of which they stood in need. It was here the foreign trader came to purchase sheep-fells and other skins, soon, by transmission abroad, to be worked up by Flemish hands into good broadcloth, and retransmitted again to London or provincial marts. Edward the Confessor obtained a sum of 70l., an immense amount at such a time as this, from the tollage at a fair held in Bedfordshire. Of many celebrated fairs, those of Smithfield on St. Bartholomew’s Day (which still exists as a kind of perpetual one), York, Winchester, and Ely seem to have been the most frequented. That in the Isle of Ely was kept up on and for some days after the feast of St. Awdrey, or Audrey, the corrupted name of St. Etheldreda, which as a surname our ‘Awdreys’ still preserve. This seems to have become specially noted for its sale of trinkets, toys, and cheap and gay laces—so much so that in course of time ‘tawdry,’ or St.-Awdry, ware became the colloquial and general term for such. Drayton we even find using the word substantively when he says:—

Of the still greater one held at Winchester, we find Piers the Plowman speaking:—

The ‘Wife of Bath,’ too, has a word to say upon this subject. Says she:—

What a picture does all this present to our eye. We can see the circular stand of booths belting the rails of the quaint belfried edifice, sometimes, I am afraid, the sacred precincts within.^[302] Behind these we may note how busy are our ‘le Stallers’ and ‘le Stallmans,’ now found also as ‘Stalman;’ not to say our ‘Stallards,’ that is, stall-wards, and obsolete ‘le Vendours.’ No infliction too severe can be made upon their readiness to please. Elbowing and chaffering and good-humoured haggling are the order of the day. Here the stupid, happy swain, with his be-ribboned sweetheart tucked under his arm, is buying their little stock wherewith to start life; here the child is made blissful with a trumpet, and the hoary-headed rustic gets a warmer cap for his crown. Here, too, it is that the chapman and other of his confrÈres, as I have already hinted, are buying in their varied commodities. All alike are well catered for. When we talk of ‘packing up our duds,’ few of us, I imagine, are aware that we are using a word of most familiar import in long generations gone by. A ‘dud’ then was a coarse, patched linen gown, gaudy in colour, made up in fact of variegated pieces of this material. Hence he who sold such cheap, flashy goods at a fair, any old fripperer in truth, was styled a ‘dudder’ up to comparatively recent times, and the booth itself a ‘duddery.’ ‘Duderman’ and ‘Dudder’ (now obsolete), ‘Dudman’ and ‘Dodman,’ are all, I doubt not, but interesting memorials of this once flourishing lower class trade. Such names as ‘Thomas Dudman’ or ‘Ralph Deuderman’ greet us occasionally in the olden rolls. ‘William Fairman,’^[303] found in the Parliamentary Writs, would be, I suppose, a more general vendor. He has not a few descendants.

But while bartering and the purchase and sale of these varied household commodities occupied no small amount of attention, such a sober mode of passing the fairtide was very far from being the intention of the younger and gayer portion of the assemblage; nor was there, indeed, any lack of that which could feed or give zest to their relish for amusement, though it was not always of the most innocent nature. Our ‘Champions’ and ‘Campions’ are but relics of the old ‘William le Champion,’^[304] or ‘Katerine le Chaumpion,’ a sobriquet which would easily affix itself to some sturdy and swarthy rustic who had thrown his adversary in the wrestling ground. This has ever been a popular sport amid our more rural communities. The Miller, Chaucer says:—

In an old poem I have already quoted, the mother warns her daughter:—

Doubtless such a sobriquet as ‘Richard le Fytur,’ that is ‘Fighter,’ would be but representative of the same. The country folks were not slow, too, to copy their masters, and in the friendly joust the former, ‘Thomas le Justere’ or ‘Robert le Justure,’ would brace himself amid the excited ring to unseat his fellow-swain, affording much sport to the on-looking wags.

By the maypole you may see the conjuror, or ‘Wiseman,’ as he was generally termed, battening himself upon the superstitious minds of the assembled hinds. In the Hundred Rolls he figures as ‘Wysman’ and ‘Wyseman.’ A little further on our ‘Players’ would be enacting their mummery. The great crowd there in the corner are watching the showman with his dancing bear, a yearly treat the younger holiday-seekers always appreciated. What a change has come over our English habits with regard to this animal. Dancing was the least cruel of the sports connected with it. Time was when every noble of position had his bears and his bearward, when even royalty could boast a master of the king’s bears, and when as a pastime the bear-baiting took an easy pre-eminence in the eyes of all holiday folk. A skit on the Earl of Warwick, banished to the Isle of Man, written 1399, says:—

In one of our earlier rolls I find several names that bear relation to this familiar sport. Of such are ‘Geoffrey Bearbaste’ and ‘Alexander Bearbait.’ More common to us in the present day, however, are the descendants of the more simple ‘Berward’ (‘Michael le Berward,’ H.R.) and ‘Bearman,’ or ‘Berman’ (‘Ralph Bareman,’ H.R.). In ‘Cocke Lorelle’s Bote’ mention is made of—

Whether ‘Jenkyne’ was a mythic personage, or whether any of our present ‘Berwards’ are his lineal issue, I cannot pretend to say.^[307] Any way, however, the name would be common enough then. Bull as well as bear baiting, I need not say, was a popular pastime with our forefathers. We still talk of bulldogs. Probably our ‘Bullards’ could formerly have told us something about this. Fit rival to these latter, you may see the ‘Cockman,’ or, as he was more generally termed, the ‘Cocker,’ matching his birds in the adjacent pit. The author of the ‘Townley Mysteries’ does not give the cocker a good character—at least he places him in very bad company—

Among other instances the Hundred Rolls furnish us with ‘Simon le Cockere’ and ‘William le Koker.’

Professional dancers, I need scarcely say, were seldom absent from the mediÆval festival. Tripping it lightly to some Moorish round, we may see such folk as ‘Harvey le Danser’ or ‘Geoffrey le Hoppere,’ inciting the younger villagers to follow their example. The latter name, which occurs frequently at this time, reminds us that our modern slang term ‘hop’ has but restored the ancient use of this word. Our Prayer-Book version of the Psalms still employs the verb in the verse, ‘Why hop ye so, ye high hills?’^[308]—and Chaucer, in picturing the merry ’prentice, says—

The feminine ‘hoppestere,’ which he also uses, does not sound quite so euphonious. In the ‘Pardoner’s Tale,’ among other of the dissolute folk in Flanders, are mentioned ‘tombesteres’—

These, I doubt not, were female dancers, and performers of such bodily gyrations and flexions as mountebanks are still skilled in. The masculine form is found in such an entry as ‘William le Tumbere,’ whom we should now, so far as his professional tricks were concerned, term a tumbler.

All this time the mirth of music is at its loudest, though it is somewhat hard to separate the tones of the various rival minstrels. There is a trio in one corner by the tavern door there, discoursing sounds which are certainly equal, if not superior, to the Teutonic bands of more modern days. Indeed, with regard to the latter, I am beginning to suspect the conjecture of a friend of mine to be perfectly true—that they are German convicts shipped off, with cracked and second-hand trumpets, by the Commissioners of Police to save their keep. It is, however, right perhaps that the country which sends us the best should also have the option of sending us the worst music in the world. The trio we may see here, at any rate, have one advantage—that of their poetic mediÆval costume. The first we may notice is the ‘Fiddler,’ represented by such men as ‘Robert Fyffudlere,’ or ‘John le Fythelere,’ or the Latinized ‘Rulard Vidulator.’ This last reminds us that it is now also written ‘Vidler.’ He of course played on the violin, for I must not say ‘fiddle,’ it is far too Saxon, for modern cultivated days. The Clerk of Oxenforde seems to have been superior to the generality of later university men, for he had—

Certainly time effects wonderful changes. But I doubt whether even he would have found much profit, not to say pleasure, in the study of Aristotle, or any other philosopher, had he been subjected to the daily practice of a well-scraped viol in an adjacent dormitory,^[309] the author of which could boast but one tune in his repertoire, and was determined that every one should know it. After the Fiddler—Saxon or no Saxon, I’ll stick to it for the nonce—comes the ‘Piper’ with his reedy stop, and next to him the ‘Taborer’ beating his drum with such rare effect as to make him the very idol of the youngsters. Spenser calls him the ‘tabrere,’ which form, as well as ‘Tabrar,’ Tabberer,’ ‘Tabor,’ and ‘Taber,’ still exists in our nomenclature.

Such entries as ‘Arnold le Pyper,’ or ‘Robert le Pipere,’ or ‘William le Tabourer,’ or ‘John le Taburer,’ are of frequent occurrence in mediÆval rolls.

is the order of the gentle author of the ‘Faerie Queen;’ so having disposed of the two former, the ‘Crowder’ with his six-stringed viol duly engages our attention next, though he ought more correctly to have been yoked with the ‘Fiddler.’ ‘Crouth’ was but another form of the same word. An old Saxon Psalter thus renders Psalm cl. 4—

Wicklyffe, too, translates Luke xv. 25 as follows:—‘But his eldre sone was in the feeld, and whaune he cam and neighede to the hous he herde a symfonye and a crowde.’^[310] Like our ‘Harpers’ and more northern ‘Bairds,’ the ‘Crowder’ or ‘Crowther’ (for as surnames both forms exist) was oftentimes blind, and thus gained the ear of an audience, if not appreciative, at least sympathetic. Seldom, indeed, did he leave cottage, or hall festival, or fair, without a guerdon, and a kind word to boot; for while customs fade out and die, pity, thank God, knows neither change of season nor chance of time. MediÆval forms of the above may be found in ‘Richard le Cruder’ or ‘Thomas le Crowder.’ But we have yet several more surnames to mention which prove the once great popularity of this latter class of instrument. ‘German le Lutrere’ and ‘John le Leuter’ have left no descendants, I think.^[311] The more common term was lutanist, but of this I have found no instance. While the lute had generally ten strings, and was struck by the hand, the viele or viol had six, was of stronger make, and was played with a bow. It seems to have been a favourite instrument in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, for such registrations as ‘Benedict le Viler,’ ‘Nicholas le Vylour,’ ‘Wyot le Vilur,’ or ‘Jacob le Vielur,’ occur with tolerable frequency at that period. Another Norman-introduced word was that of ‘gigue,’ or ‘gig.’ This, however, seems to have differed from the others in being of the very roughest manufacture, and made specially for professional dancers. These ‘giguers’ were extremely popular at rural festivals of any kind. At one and the same instant they would be tripping it round on the ‘light fantastic toe,’ singing some not too select verses, accompanying themselves on their sturdy instrument, and yet would have a hand to spare for a trifle if you should offer it. If you doubted it you had but to try them. It is thus we have got our ‘jig,’ our ‘gigot,’ or leg of mutton, too, being so called from its resemblance thereto. The surnominal form is found in such entries as ‘Walter le Gigur,’ or ‘Alexander le Gygur,’ but I doubt whether either is represented now. The last of this class of instrumentalists we may mention is ‘William le Sautreour,’ he who struck the ‘gay sawtrye,’ as Chaucer terms it. The more correct form of the word was ‘psaltery.’ It was specially used as an accompaniment for the voice, hence it is freely used in this sense in the Authorized Version. I do not doubt myself that some of our ‘Salters’ are but a change rung on the mediÆval ‘Sawtrer.’ The ‘Fluter,’ I believe, has left no descendants, but in ‘Nicholas le Floutere’ he was to be met with at this date, and, I need not say, would be as familiar as he would be acceptable on such an occasion as this. The lusty young Squire was so musical that—

There is one name I must mention here, that of ‘Peter le Organer,’^[312] perhaps connected with ‘Orger’ of the same date. The owner of this more modern-looking term may either have been organist at some monastery or abbey-church, or he may have played upon the portable regal, in which latter case he too might possibly have been seen here. But ‘organ’ was a very general term. In the old psalters it seems to have been used for nearly every species of instrument. We should scarcely speak now of ‘hanging up our “organs” upon the willows,’ but so an old version of the Psalms has it. Did we not know they were a modern invention we might have been inclined to suspect ‘le Organer’ to have been but a strolling performer upon the ‘hurdy-gurdy.’ That, however, was an infliction mercifully spared to our forefathers. In concluding this brief survey of mediÆval music, I cannot, I think, do better than quote, as I have done partially once before, Robert de Brunne’s account of the coronation of King Arthur, wherein we shall find many, if not most, of the professional characters I have been mentioning familiarly spoken of. He says—

But we are not without traces of the troubadour. The simple vocalist, a strolling professionalist, too, in many instances, remains hale and hearty in our ‘Glemans,’ ‘Gleemans,’ and ‘Glemmans,’ not to mention our ‘Sangsters.’ Amid such lulls as might intervene, we should hear them at the popular festivals bidding for favour with their old-fashioned stories of ‘hawk and hound,’ and ‘my ladyes bower,’ set, no doubt, to airs equally À la mode. A contemporary poet tells us their song

The recitation of these stories seems to have been a peculiarly popular profession. Our ‘Rhymers’ oftentimes showed their skill in the art of rhythmical narration by weaving the exploits they described into extempore verse.^[313] The ‘Juggler’ or ‘Joculator,’ originally a minstrel or ‘jester,’ something akin to the clown of later days, became by-and-by more celebrated for his skill in legerdemain than loquacity, and now little else is understood by the word. Almost every baron, and even the king himself, had his favourite jester; but it was an art put to the most corrupt purposes, and ‘Jagge the Jogelour’ is set in very low company by Piers Plowman. Certainly his jokes were of the lewdest description, even for the rough times in which he lived. His voice, too, was sufficiently elevated, if we may trust the account given in the ‘Romance of Alexander,’ for—

The ‘Dissour,’ the old Norman ‘diseur,’ similar in character to the rhymer and the juggler, seems to have left no memorial, saving it be in our ‘Dissers;’^[314] neither can I trace ‘le Tregetour’ later than the fifteenth century. Every footprint of his professional existence, indeed, is now faded from our view. And yet there was the day when none could be more familiar than he. The Hundred Rolls record not merely ‘Symon le Tregetor,’ but ‘William le Tregetur’ also, while ‘Maister John Rykele’ is spoken of by Lydgate as ‘sometime Tregitour of noble Henrie, King of Engleland.’ Chaucer, too, mentions sciences

while in another place he speaks of seeing

with other equally marvellous feats. Thus we see that the art of legerdemain was not neglected at this time.

I doubt whether any relics we possess so completely convey to our minds the radical changes which have swept across the face of our English Commonwealth as do these lingering surnames. They remind us of the invention of printing, of the spread of literature, and of the slow decay thereby of the professions they represented. They tell us of a changed society, they tell us of a day of rougher cast and looser trammels; they tell us of a life around which the lapse of intervening years has thrown a halo of so quaint aspect that we all but long, in our more sentimental moods, to be thrown back upon it again. Placing these tell-tale names by the life of the present, we see what a change has passed over all. Let us hope this change denotes progress. In some respects it assuredly does: progress in the settlement of our common rights and duties, progress in civilization and order, progress in mental culture, progress in decorum. Still we may yet ask, with all this has there been any true progress? The juggler, ’tis true, with his licentious story, and the dissolute tragetour, both are gone—they would be handcuffed now, and put in gaol. This speaks something for a higher cultivation. But, after all, may not this be a mere outside refinement—a refinement to meet the requirements of an age in which the head is educated more than the heart—a refinement which may be had in our shops—the refinement, in fact, of the lowest of God’s endowed creatures, that of the exquisite? This is, indeed, an artificial age, and it warns us to see to it whether we are hypocrites or no; whether our life is entirely external or the reverse; whether it is all shell and no kernel, all the outside cup and platter, and within naught save extortion and excess. That mortal shall have attained the highest wisdom who, in the light of the world to come, shall have seen to the cleansing of that which is within, and if that, if the heart be cleansed, then the external life will as naturally, as it will of necessity, be pure.