Withouten help of mannes hond,
All heled with the grene grass.[[239]]
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:—
Flouren cakes beth the schingles alle
Of cherche, cloister, boure, and halle.
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—
Masones, male-makers, and merbelers.[[242]]
‘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—