Chapter I: Rehetour

(See the _Three Treatises_, published by Dr. Todd, Dublin, 1851.
Text, pages xxv, xxvi and lxv; Note on Rehetours, p. clxxi-ii.)

It is certain that Monastery and Minster were originally one word in Latin; it is generally believed that Rhythm and Rhyme were one in Greek; and it is possible that _Rehetour_ and _Caterer_ had one prototype in Spanish: of this last pair only one survived; it is naturally that which, by being equal to the other in sense, excels it in harmony with the English tongue.

Convinced that the office assigned to the _Rehetours_ in the lordly household could not have been filled by any such character as ascribed to the _Rehâteur_, _Reheater_, or _Rehaiteur_; convinced, moreover, that the Scottish _Rehator_, _Rehatoure_, and the English _Rehetour_ must be either both restored to their common kindred, or else consigned to common oblivion, I chose the former alternative; and after a careful inquest held on these twin foundlings, together with _Rehete_, _Reheting_, two other departed strangers of the same age, I venture to pronounce the following verdict:--

1. A native of Spain, _Regatero_ (see Stephen's _Spanish Dictionary_, 1726, and all that is said about _Regaton_ in the _Diccionario_ of the Academy, Madrid, 1737, folio), travelling in Great Britain, changed to _Rehetour_, _Rehator_, &c.

2. By trade a retailer of provisions, huckster, or purveyor, his character strongly partook of the nature of his commodities, so as to become tainted; this appears from the quotations in Jamieson's _Etym. Dictionary_, and is attested by the Spanish proverb, _Ni compres de Regaton, ni te descuides en meson_: Wycklyffe in all three passages expresses his apprehension of "harm." The French _regrattier_ from _gratter_ (to scratch, scrape), and _Regatero_, _Regaton_, from _gato_ (a cat), whether they be, or be not, truly thus derived, bear equally marks of a contemptible impression.

3. In Wycklyffe's simile the _Rehetours_ take care of the bodily, the ecclesiastics of the spiritual food, the Pope being the steward of the household. The Scottish _Rehatour_ we find no longer as an ordinary plain dealer, but in a state of depravity, so as to be a mere byeword, even in the sense of blackguard, which word itself, if we believe Nares (see his _Glossary_) that it owes its existence to those menials of the court, cannot have been barely "a jocular name," but their disposition must have corresponded to their black exterior, otherwise the joke could not have remained a lasting stigma. I believe, however, the word _blackguard_, by inserting the _l_, merely simulates a vernacular origin, it being properly _Beguards_ (see Boiste, _Dictionnaire Universel_), from _Beghardus_ (see _Mediæval Glossaries_), once a German participle _bek[=a]rt_ (now _bekehrt_), _converted_, applied to the Frater _conversus_, secular begging monks who, increasing in number and misdeeds, soon became universally notorious, and ultimately (mixed up with impostors who assumed their dress) would serve in any capacity rather than the honest and irreproachable.

4. If _Caterer_ proceeded from the Spanish, it arrived thus--_Recatero_--_Recaterer_--_Caterer_; the _c_ for _g_ being either the natural result from the accent which the majority of speakers withdrew from the latter syllable of the word, or is accounted for by "_Recatear lo mismo que regatear_:" the derivation from _re_ and _cautus_, as given by Covarrubias, likewise protects the _c_.

5. It is possible that the primitive root _Kat_ or _Gat_, in the sense of hollow, hole, cavity, cave, &c., whence _Gate_, _Cot_, _Cottage_, _Cattegat_ (Sinus Codanus), probably also _Regatta_, was the first element of both the Spanish and the English term; the spot or situation where the eatables were originally exposed for sale thus causing them first to be called _cates_ (a plural noun like wages), then the singular _cate_, &c., the noun of agent having most probably preceded the verb _cater_, which has come last. A similar derivation is certain with regard to _huckster_, which, besides _huckeback_, joins the Swedish _hökare_, German _Höker_, &c., from the bending, crooked, or squatting position in some brook or crook or corner.

6. The verb _Rehete_ is aptly derived by Jamieson from _Rehaiter_; both are extinct, yet their kindred _heiter_ (formerly _haiter_), with its two verbs _erheitern_ and _aufheitern_, are still in full vigour among the Germans, to whom they afford serenity of mind, mood, and weather. The French compound word for wishing, _souhaiter_, refers its verb _haiter_ to the Swedish _heta_, German _heissen_, Anglo-Saxon _hetan_, as in _Ulf het aræran cyrice_, "ULF bid rear the church" (see Latham, _Engl. Lang._ 1850, p. 99.): now if also from the _haiter_ of that compound we may suppose a derivative _Rehaiter_, or at least one of the kind to have served Chaucer in his participle _Reheting_, which has been the puzzle of his commentators in the following passage from _Troilus_ (III. line 350.):

"And all the reheting of his sikes (sighs) sore,
At ones fled, he felt 'hem no more;"

we may easily understand thereby that, as it were, a rebidding, an importunate insisting upon, the repetition of his sighs, ceased and were at an end; so that in the time of Edward III. a person complaining of a troublesome cough, headache, &c., might call it a reheting cough, &c.