Brede an chese, butere and milk,
Pasties and flaunes.
A ‘Roger le Flaoner’ comes in the London Corporation records, A.D. 1307, while much about the same time I find a ‘Walter le Flawner’ in the Parliamentary writs.
I have kept our ‘Panyers’ and ‘Panniers’ till the last, because there is just a shade of doubt as to whether they owe their name to the manufacture of the basket so called or to the hawking of bread, the very practice of which custom, so familiar as it was then, has given us the term. The original meaning of ‘pannier,’ the French ‘panier,’ was bread-basket, and the word seems to have acquired a peculiar prominence from the fact that in mediæval times bakers, through being the subjects of a careful supervision, were forbidden to sell their bread anywhere but in the public market—nay, so particular were the authorities with regard to this that an officer was specially appointed to watch the ‘hutches,’ boxes, or baskets in which the loaves were exposed. A surname ‘Robert le Huchereve’ is even found in the Guildhall records as a relic of this. We can thus readily understand how hawkers of these portable covers or baskets would acquire the sobriquet of ‘panyers.’ Certain it is we find such entries as ‘Simon le Pannier,’ ‘Robert le Pannere,’ ‘Amiscus Panarius,’ or ‘Geoffrey Panyman,’ while in another register the occupation of ‘panyere’ is distinctly mentioned. We can equally readily understand how from this the term itself would, in course of time, obtain a wider and more general sense. That it has done so the donkey’s panniers are a proof. It is, however, somewhat strange, when we reflect upon it, that perhaps the last thing we should expect to see borne in this fashion in the present day would be that very article to which the receptacle itself owed its name.
It is somewhat remarkable that while our directories possess many records of the early manufacture of and traffic in cheese, yet there are no names whatever in the present day, I believe, and barely any in the past, which are associated with the most important of all country produce—butter.[[373]] The most satisfactory clue to the difficulty will be to suppose that the cheese-merchant of that day, as often in the present, dealt in both articles. This is the more likely, as the many sobriquets given to dealers in cheese in the fourteenth century would appear to give that edible, important as it was and is, a greater prominence than singly it deserved. Thus we find such names as ‘Edward le Cheseman’ or ‘Robert le Chesemaker,’ ‘John le Chesewright,’ or ‘William le Cheswright,’ or ‘Alen le Chesmongere,’ as representatives of the Saxons, figuring somewhat conspicuously in the registers of the period.[[374]] For the foreign element, too, cognomens were not wanting. ‘Benedict’ or ‘Michael le Casiere’ may even now be living in our ‘Cayzers,’ if they be not but another form of ‘Kaiser,’ and ‘Wilkin le Furmager’ or ‘William le Formager’ in our ‘Firmingers,’ is in no risk of immediate oblivion. The majority of the Saxon forms, I need scarcely add, are also thriving in our midst.
It may seem somewhat strange that ‘grocer,’ of all trades the most important, so far as the kitchen is concerned, should be so rarely represented in our nomenclature. But the reason is simple enough. To sell in the gross, or wholesale, was a second and later step in commercial practice. A ‘John Guter, Grossarius,’ appears in the London City Rolls so early as 1310, but it had scarcely become a familiar name of trade till the close of the fourteenth century.[[375]] In 1363 a statute of Edward III. speaks concerning ‘Merchauntz nomez Grossers,’ so termed because they ‘engrossent totes maners des marchandises vendables,’ and then enhanced the price on each separate article. Before this they had been known as the Pepperers, or Spicers Guild, such names as ‘John le Espicer’ or ‘Nicholas le Espicer’ occurring not unfrequently at this period. Spice, indeed, was the then general term for all manner of drugs, aromatic and pungent, which were brought into England by foreign and especially Venetian merchants from the East. These were carried up and down the country again by the itinerant traders, so many of whom I have already referred to in a previous chapter. An old song, written against the mendicant friars, relates that, among other of their vagaries—
Many a dyvers spyse
In bagges about they bear.
As I have just stated, however, the term ‘Grocer’ superseded that of ‘Spicer,’ and as such seems to have confined its dealings to the modernly received limit at an early date. As we must have already seen, each want had always hitherto been met by its own special dealer. With us now the Cutler would supply all the ‘Knifesmith’ and ‘Spooner’ then separately furnished; while our ‘Ironmongers’ or ‘Hosiers’ or ‘Upholdsters’ would each swallow up half-a-dozen of former occupations. Thus it was here. Our ‘John le Saucers’ or ‘Ada la Saucers’ provided salt pickle.[[376]] As with the ‘Frankelein,’ so with many another there—
Wo was his cook, but if his sauce were