In orisons, with many a bitter tear,
Til Jesu hath converted, through his grace,
Dame Hermegild.
This must have been its favourite form in the common mouth, for we find it recorded in such names as ‘Custance Muscel,’ ‘Custance Clerk,’ ‘Robert fil. Custe,’ or ‘Cus nepta Johannis,’ with tolerable frequency. The diminutive ‘Cussot’ is also to be met with. I need hardly say that in our ‘Custances,’ ‘Custersons,’ ‘Cuss’s,’ and ‘Custs,’ not to say some of our ‘Cousens,’ as corruptions of ‘Custson,’ the remembrance of this once familiar name still survives. Of late years the name proper has again become popular. ‘Beatrice’ is another instance of a name once common sunk into comparative desuetude. The Norman ‘Beton’ was the most favoured pet form. Piers Plowman says (Passus V.):—
Beton the Brewestere bade him good-morrow,
and a little further on,
And bade Bette cut a bough, and beat Betoun therewith.
Thus it is we frequently light upon such entries as ‘John Betyn,’ ‘Betin de Friscobald,’ ‘Robert Betonson,’ ‘John Bettenson,’ or ‘Thomas Betanson.’ These latter of course soon dropped into ‘Beatson’ and ‘Betson,’ which, with ‘Beton’ and ‘Beaton,’ are still common to our directories. ‘Emma,’ too, as a Norman name has left its mark. By a pure accident, however, as Miss Yonge points out, it had got a place previous to the Conquest among the Saxons, through the fact of the daughter of Richard I. of Normandy marrying first Ethelred, surnamed the Unready, and then Canute the Great. Thus, though it has not unfrequently been claimed as of Saxon origin, it is not so in reality. The general spelling is ‘Emme,’ and the pet ‘Emmot’ or ‘Emmet’ is found in such names as ‘Emmota Plummer’ or ‘Emmetta Catton.’ This at once guides us into the source of our ‘Emmots,’ ‘Emmetts,’[[53]] ‘Emmes,’ ‘Emsons,’ ‘Empsons,’ and ‘Emmotsons.’[[54]]
Almost as equal a favourite as ‘Emma’ was ‘Cecilia.’ This was a name introduced at the Conquest in the person of Cecile, a daughter of William I., and it soon found itself a favourite among high and low as ‘Cicely,’ or still shorter as ‘Cis’ or ‘Sis,’ although the latter seems to have been the more general form. In Piers Plowman, however, is preserved the more correct initial. I have already quoted him when he speaks so familiarly of
Cesse the souteresse.