Tylers, bryckeleyers, hardehewers;
Parys-plasterers, daubers, and lymeborners.
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—
Thus having where they stood in vaine complained of their wo,
When night drew neare they bad adue, and eche gave kisses sweete
Unto the parget on their side, the which did never meete.
‘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.
Withouten bake mete never was his house,
Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous,