[173]. As in occupative names, such as ‘Fisherman’ and ‘Poulterer,’ there was a tendency to repeat the suffix, or to add ‘man’ to a term that itself expressed a personal agent, so it was in official names. We have just spoken of ‘Vickerman’ and ‘Priestman.’ ‘Symon Priorman’ (W. 15) and ‘William Munkeman’ (W. 15) are other cases in point.
[174]. A curious, not to say cumbrous, surname is met with in the Parliamentary Writs—that of ‘Holywaterclerk’—a certain ‘Hugh Haliwaterclerk’ being set down as dwelling at Lincoln. Doubtless he was connected with the cathedral body of that city. The name, I need not say, is obsolete; and the Reformation has removed the office denoted. A ‘Walter le Churcheclerk’ is found in the same record.
[175]. The charge of the vestry seems to have been given also to the ‘revetour,’ from ‘revestir.’ A ‘William Revetour, clericus, filius Rogeri Morbet, revetour,’ was admitted to freedom of York City in 1420. He died in 1446, and in his will makes mention of his father as ‘Roger Revetour.’ (Corpus Christi Guild, p. 24. Surt. Soc.)
[176]. A curious, not to say cumbrous, surname is met with in the Parliamentary Writs—that of ‘Holywaterclerk’—a certain ‘Hugh Haliwaterclerk’ being set down as dwelling at Lincoln. Doubtless he was connected with the cathedral body of that city. The name, I need not say, is obsolete; and the Reformation has removed the office denoted. A ‘Walter le Churcheclerk’ is found in the same record.
[177]. The charge of the vestry seems to have been given also to the ‘revetour,’ from ‘revestir.’ A ‘William Revetour, clericus, filius Rogeri Morbet, revetour,’ was admitted to freedom of York City in 1420. He died in 1446, and in his will makes mention of his father as ‘Roger Revetour.’ (Corpus Christi Guild, p. 24. Surt. Soc.)
[178]. ‘John Closterer.’ (Three Histories of Durham. Surt. Soc.) This would be a general term for one who dwelt in a monastic institution. Shakespeare uses the feminine ‘cloistress.’ Of a similar character would be ‘Nicholas Brotherhood’ (Nicholls’ Leicester, 1633), ‘John Brotherhood’ (W. 20), or ‘William Felliship’ (W. 11).
[179]. In the Monastical Church of Durham, written in 1593, we are told of the ‘Cellarer’ that ‘the chambre where he dyd lye was in the dorter.’ (P. 83.)
[180]. Hence the local surname ‘Spital’ or ‘Spittle:’ ‘Richard ate Spitale,’ M. ‘Gilbert de Hospitall,’ A.
[181]. Our ‘Amners’ are but a corruption of this same name. The word had become early so corrupted—‘For in tymes paste kynges have geven theyr bysshoprycks to theyr councellers, chaplaynes ... or to suche which have taken paynes in theyr householde, as amners, and deans of the chappell,’ &c. (A Supplycacion to our moste Soveraigne Lorde Kynge Henry the Eyght, p. 34.)
[182]. It was thus in the case of Simon the Leper of Bethany. The fact of there being a feast in his house shows that he had been cured of his disorder. None the less, however, did the surname cling to him.