Furred with no minevere,
But with a furre rough of hair.
It was the same with our ‘Burrels’ (‘Roger Burell,’ J., ‘Robert Burell,’ R.), whom I have already had occasion to mention. So familiar was this cloth that the poorer classes acquired from it the sobriquet of ‘borelfolk.’ This is only analogous to the French ‘grisette,’ from the grey cheap stuff she usually wore. Our ‘Blankets’ (‘Robert Blanket,’ B., ‘John Blanket,’ X.) or ‘Blanchets’ or ‘Plunkets,’[[493]] for all these forms are found, are in the same way but relics of the time when the colourless woollen mixture, called by all these names, was in everyday demand, whether for dress or coverlet. A story has been spread abroad that our woollen ‘blanket’ owes its origin to a man of that name, who first manufactured it. Even otherwise well-informed writers have lent themselves to the furtherance of this fable. ‘Blanket’ was originally the name of a cheap woollen cloth, used for the apparel of the lower orders, and so entitled from its pale and colourless hue, just as russet and burrel were in vogue to express similar manufactures of more decided colours. It was but the Norman form of the Saxon ‘whittle,’ once the household word for this fabric. Thus we find it occurring in an old Act, already referred to, passed in 1363, to restrict the dress of the peasantry:—All people not possessing 40 shillings’ worth of goods and chattels ‘ne usent nule manere de drap, si noun blanket et russet, laune de xiid.,’ that is, shall not take nor wear any manner of cloth, but blanket and russet wool of twelvepence. (Stat. Realm, vol. i. p. 381.) An old indenture of goods contains the following:—‘Item, 1 olde Kendale gowne, and a hood of the same, pris ixd., the gowne lynyd with white blanket.’ (Mun. Acad. Oxon., p. 566.) Both ‘Whittle’ and ‘Blanket’ are existing surnames. The reader will see from these references alone that, whether in the case of the man or the manufacture, it is the colour, or rather lack of colour, which has given the sobriquet. Our ‘Greenmans,’ whether as surname or tavern sign, are but sprung from the old forester—
Clad in cote and hode of grene,
of Lincoln or Kendal make. The ‘Greenman’ was a favourite rural signboard, and I doubt not the reader will have seen it occasionally swinging still in the more retired parts of the country. Crabbe knew it well in his day—
But the ‘Green Man’ shall I pass by unsung,
Which mine own James upon his signpost hung?
His sign, his image—for he once was seen
A squire’s attendant, clad in keeper’s green.
Turning from the colour of the cloth to the garments into which it was fashioned, nothing could be more natural to our forefathers than to take off with a sobriquet the more whimsical aspects of dress indulged in by particular individuals. Royalty itself did not escape. It was through his introduction of a new fashion our second Henry got his nickname of ‘Curtmantel,’ and this was matched by ‘Capet’ and ‘Grisegonel’ across the water. ‘Richard Curtepy’ reminds us of the poor clerk of whom Chaucer says—