Chapter II: Local Surnames (1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thom Tynker, and Betrys Belle,
Peyrs Potter, and Watt _at the_ Well;[106]

while ‘Piers Plowman’ represents Covetousness as saying—

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

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

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

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

Maken him gret festes at the nale.

An old poem, too, says—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wind in holts and shady greaves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the hartes in these hye _laundes_.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With glad chere to the yate

she is gone

To grete the markisesse;

and Piers Plowman says our Lord came in through

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

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

Lurking in hernes and in lanes blinde.

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

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

Come to my crofte alle ye.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Soon they sembled in sale,
Both kynge and cardinale,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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