[390]. The bailiff of Gloucester, in the year 1300, was ‘Robert L’espicer, or Apothecary.’ (Rudder’s Gloucestershire, p. 114.)
[391]. We have a similar curtailment in our ‘Prentices’ or ‘Prentis’s’ (relics of ‘William le Prentiz’ or ‘Nicholas Apprenticius’) a name of the most familiar import at the time of which we are speaking. Chaucer begins his ‘Cook’s Tale’ by saying—
‘A prentis whilom dwelt in our citee,
And of a craft of vitaillers was he.’
In the early days of national commerce and industry, when the jealousy of foreign craftsmen was at its height, the prentice boys showed themselves on various occasions a formidable body, capable of arousing riots and tumults of the most serious character.
[392]. Early Eng. Text Soc., Extra Series, vol. viii. p. 6.
[393]. The surname of ‘Shaver’ was not unknown then as now. ‘Jeffery Schavere’ was rector of Fincham, Norfolk, in 1409 (Blomefield). ‘Henry Shavetail,’ an evident nickname, occurs in the Patent Rolls (R.R.1).
[394]. In a popular poem of Henry the Eighth’s time mention is made of—
‘Harpemakers, leches, and upholdsters,
Porters, fesycyens, and corsers.’