[200]. ‘The Sewer muste speke with the panter and offycers of ye spycery for fruytes that shall be eten fastynge.’—The Boke of Kervynge.
[201]. A manciple was an achatour for a more public institution, such as an Inn of Court or College. It is quite possible that our ‘Mansels’ and ‘Maunsels’ are thus derived, relics as they undoubtedly are of the ‘le Maunsels’ or ‘le Mansells’ of this period. The corruption colloquially of ‘manciple’ into ‘maunsell’ would be a perfectly natural one. An instance of the purer form is found in the name of ‘Thomas Mancipill,’ met with in Munimenta Academica (Oxon.) p. 525, under the date 1441. That this was a common term at that university we may prove from an indenture found in the same book, dated 1459, in which are mentioned ‘catours, manciples, spencers, cokes, lavenders, &c.’ (P. 346.) It may be interesting to some to state that to this day this is the term for the chief cook in several of the colleges.
[202]. A ‘William Celarer’ is mentioned in the Churchwardens’ Accounts of Horley, Surrey, 1526. (Brand. vol. i. 226.) A Saxon form of this existed in the term, ‘Hoarder,’ i.e. one who stored up. ‘Richard le Hordere’ (H.R.), ‘Adam le Horder’ (Parl. Writs). The form ‘hordestre,’ or cellaress, is met with in contemporaneous writings.
[203]. The duties of Butler and Panter being so all-important, they are often found encroaching on one another’s vocation. Thus the Boke of Curtasye says:—
‘Botler schalle sett for each a messe,
A pot, a lofe, withouten distress.’
[204]. This was evidently in existence as a surname formerly, although I have only been able to discover one instance of it. The Principal of Bedel Hall, one of the numerous smaller establishments at Oxford in mediæval times, was in the year 1462 a certain Dr. Schalke. (Mun. Acad. Oxon.) It is very likely that our present ‘Chalk’ represents this name.
[205]. ‘The sewer must serve, and from the borde convey all manner of potages, metes, and sauces.’—The Boke of Kervynge.
[206]. We still use the compounds of this, as in ‘pursue,’ ‘ensue,’ or ‘issue;’ but we scarcely now employ the simple root-word so freely as it evidently was employed in Wicklyffe’s time. He translates Mark ii. 14 as follows: ‘And whaune he passide he saygh Levy of Alfey sittynge at the tolbothe and he seide to hym, sue me, and he roos and suede him.’
[207]. ‘Item: A Duke’s eldest sonn is borne a Marquisse, and shall goe as a Marquisse, and have his Assayes, the Marquisse being present.’ (A Book of Precedence.) Hall, speaking of King Richard’s murder, says of Sir Piers that he ‘came to Pomfret, commanding that the esquier whiche was accustomed to sewe and take the assaye before Kyng Rychard should no more use that maner of service.’ F. xiv.