He hath sent after thee his chare.

Gower, too, has the word—

With that she looked and was war,

Doun fro’ the sky ther cam a char,

The which dragons aboute drew.

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—

And turning to that place, in which whyleare

He left his loftie steed with golden sell,

And goodly gorgeous barbes.