A not-hed hadde he, with a browne visage.
Andrew Boorde, too, later on, writing of the ‘Mores whyche do dwel in Barbary,’ says: ‘They have gret lyppes and nottyd heare, black and curled.’[[489]] The name as a sobriquet is very common in the old registers. Among other instances may be mentioned ‘Henry le Not’ and ‘Herbert le Notte’ in the ‘Placitorum’ at Westminster. Nature, however, did for our ‘Callows’ what art had done for the latter. The term is written ‘calewe’ with our earlier writers, and in this form is found as a surname in 1313, one ‘Richard le Calewe,’ or bald-headed, occurring in the Parliamentary Writs for that year. We still talk of fledgelings as ‘callow young.’ From its Latin root ‘calvus,’[[490]] and through the French ‘chauve,’ we get also the early ‘John le Chauf,’ ‘Geoffrey le Cauf,’ and ‘Richard le Chaufyn’—forms which still abide with us in our ‘Corfes’ and ‘Caffins.’ Our ‘Balls’ are manifestly sprung from some ‘Custance Balde’ or ‘Richard Bald.’ But there is yet one more name to be mentioned in this category, that of ‘Peel’ or ‘Peile,’ descended, as it doubtless is in many cases, from such folk as ‘Thomas le Pele’ or ‘William le Pyl.’
As pilled as an ape was his crown
is the not very complimentary description Chaucer gives of the Miller of Trumpington. It is but the same word as occurs in our Authorised Version of Ezekiel xxix. 18, where it is said: ‘Every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled.’ In Isaiah xviii. 2, too, we read of a ‘nation scattered and peeled,’ the marginal reading being ‘outspread and polished.’[[491]] Used as a surname, it seems to have denoted that glossy smoothness, that utter guiltlessness of capillary protection which belongs only to elderly gentlemen, and even then to but a few.[[492]]
It can be no matter of astonishment to us, when we reflect upon it, that our nomenclature should owe so much to this one single specialty of the human physique. The face is the mark of all recognition among men, and how much of its character belongs to the simple appanage we have been speaking of we may easily gather from the difference the slightest change in the style of dressing or cutting it makes among those with whom we are most familiar. Looking back at what has been recorded, what a living proof they afford us of the truth of Horace Smith’s assertion that surnames ‘ever go by contraries.’ The art of colouring may be hereditary, but certainly not the dyes themselves. Who ever saw a ‘Whytehead’ who was not dark, or a ‘Blacklock’ who was not a blonde? Who ever saw reddish hair on a ‘Russell,’ or a swarthy complexion on a ‘Morell’? How invariably does it happen that our ‘Lightfoots’ are gouty, and our ‘Hales’ dyspeptic, our ‘Bigges’ are manikins, and our ‘Littles’ giants. Such are the tricks that Time plays with us. Recorded history gives us the slow development of change in the habits and customs of domestic life, but here we can compare the physical shifts of the family itself. As history and everything else, however, are said to repeat themselves, we may comfort or condole with, as the case may require, those who, if this dictum, like the Pope’s, be infallible, shall some time or other return to their primitive hues and original proportions.
(3) Nicknames from Peculiarities of Dress and Accoutrements.
An interesting peep into the minuter details of mediæval life is given us in the case of names derived from costume and ensigncy, whether peaceful or warlike. The colour of the cloth of which the dress was composed seems to have furnished us with several surnames. For instance, our ‘Burnets’ would seem to be associated with the fabric of a brown mixture common at one period. Our great early poet, in describing Avarice, says—
A mantle hung her faste by
Upon a benche weak and small,
A burnette cote hung there withall,