[229]. The first instance I have met with of this name is in a formal declaration against Popish doctrine, dated 1534, and signed among others by ‘Gulielmus Buckmaster.’ (Foxe’s Martyrology.)
[230]. The Hundred Rolls have the abbreviated form in ‘Godfrey le Futur.’
[231]. Not very long previously to this we find Trevisa writing: ‘There are many harts, and wild beasts, and few wolves, therefore sheep are the more sykerlyche’ (secure). Thus we have ample evidence, apart from the existence of the name, that this depredator of the farming stock was anything but unknown during mediæval times.
[232]. Of course the breeding of falcons was a favourite as well as important care. By a special statute of Edward I.’s reign, every freeman could have in his own wood ‘ayries of hawks, sparrowhawks, faulcons, eagles, and herons.’ (25 Edward I. c. 13.) By a statute passed in the reign of Edward III., anyone who found a strayed hawk or tercelet was to bring it to the sheriff of the county, through whom proclamation to that effect was to be made in the towns. If the finder concealed the bird, he was rendered liable to two years’ imprisonment. (34 Ed. III. c. 22.) This will give some idea of the value attached to a good falcon in those days.
[233]. This form of spelling is used by Burton in his Anatomy. He asks, how would Democritus have been affected ‘to see a scholar crouch and creep to an illiterate peasant for a meal’s meat, a scrivener better paid for an obligation, a faulkner receive greater wages than a student?’ (P. 37.)
[234]. Juliana Berners says: ‘Ye shall understonde that they ben called Ostregeres that kepe goshawkes or tercelles.’ (Ed. 1496, b. iii.)
[235]. ‘Thacker’ represented the northern pronunciation, ‘Thatcher’ the south. Compare ‘kirk’ and ‘church,’ ‘poke’ and ‘pouch,’ ‘dike’ and ‘ditch,’ or the surnames ‘Fisk’ and ‘Fish.’ A ‘Nathaniel Thackman’ is set down in the index to State Papers (Domestic) for 1635.
[236]. A ‘John Thaxter’ is met with in a college register for 1567 (Hist. C. C. Coll. Cam.), and far earlier than this, in the Parliamentary Writs, we light upon a ‘Thomas Thackstere.’ This is one more instance of the feminine termination. That the word itself was in familiar use is proved by the fact that in the ordinance arranging the Norwich Trades Procession we find among others the ‘Thaxteres’ marching in company with the ‘Rederes.’ (Hist. Norfolk, vol. iii.) As a surname the term still survives.
[237]. ‘Robertus Brown, redere,’ Guild of St. George, Norwich.
[238]. ‘Also, that no tylers called hillyers of the cite compelle, ne charge ne make no tyler straunger to serve at his rule and assignment, etc.’—The Ordinances of Worcester, English Guilds, 398.