Hikke the hakeney-man,
And Hugh the nedlere.
‘Cocke Lorelle’ also mentions—
Pavyers, belle-makers, and brasyers,
Pynners, nedelers, and glasyers.
The Norman form ‘le Agguiler,’ or ‘Auguiler,’ still lives in our ‘Aguilers’ if not ‘Aguilars.’ A ‘Thomas le Agguiler’ represented York in the Parliament of 1305. Chaucer uses ‘aguiler’ in the sense of a needlecase—
A silver needle forth I drew,
Out of an aguiler quaint ’ynow.
But if pins and needles were valued more highly then than they are now, none the less did ‘buttons’ fulfil their own peculiar and important use. ‘Henry le Botoners’ or ‘Richard le Botyners’[[347]] may be found in most of our records. I do not see, however, that their descendants have preserved the sobriquet, unless, after the fashion of several other words in our vocabulary, they are flourishing secretly among our ‘Butlers,’ and thus helping to swell the already strong phalanx that surname has mustered. While, however, all these representatives of so many though kindred occupations seem to have flourished in their separate capacities, I do not doubt but that ‘Richard le Haberdasher’ would have been able to supply most of the wares they dealt in. His was a common and lucrative employment in a day when, to judge by the contents of a shop of this kind as set down in the London Rolls, he could offer for purchase such a wide assortment as spurs and shirts, chains and nightcaps, spectacles and woollen threads, beads and pen-cases, combs and ink-horns, parchments and whipcords, gaming-tables and coffins (Riley’s ‘London Memorials,’ p. 422). There seems to be little doubt, however, that in the first place he dealt simply in the ‘hapertas,’ a kind of coarse, thick cloth much in vogue at this time, and that it was from this he acquired the name he bore.[[348]]
The now, I fear, obsolete ‘Camiser’ made the ‘camis’ or chemise, or linen underdress—he was the shirtmaker, in fact. The former spelling lingered on to Spenser’s time, who writes of a