‘Letson’ is met in the fourteenth century as ‘Fitz-Lettice.’ ‘Theophania’ was anything but unpopular, but its length made it unavoidable but that it should be mutilated, or at least put in an abbreviated or nickname form, and thus it is has arisen our ‘Tiffany,’ whence of course the surname of to-day. Thus, in the Coventry Mysteries, it is demanded that
Both Bonting the Brewster and Sybyl Slynge,
Megge Mery-wedyr, and Sabyn[[59]] Sprynge,
Tiffany Twynkeler fayle for no thynge.
Thierry in his history of the ‘Conquest of England’ quotes an old writer, who has preserved the following lines of a decidedly doggrel character:—
William de Cognisby
Came out of Brittany
With his wife Tiffany,
And his maid Manfras,
And his dogge Hardigras.