Our ‘Barnes,’ I need not say, are of similar origin. The Celtic ‘booth,’ a frail tenement of ‘boughs,’ whose temporary character our Biblical account of the Israelitish wanderings so well helps to preserve, has given birth to our ‘Booths’ and ‘Boothmans,’ once written ‘de la Bothe’ and ‘Botheman.’ They may possibly have kept the stall at the fair or market. Comparisons we know are ever odious, but set beside the more Saxon ‘Steads’ and ‘Steadmans’ the former inevitably suffer. The very names of these latter betray to us the well-nigh best characteristics of the race whence they are sprung. To be steady and stedfast are its best and most inherent qualities—qualities which, added to the dash and spirit of the Norman, have given the position England to-day occupies among the nations of the world. Our ‘Bowers’ and ‘Bowermans,’ when not occupied in the bowyer’s or bower’s craft, represent the earlier ‘de la Bore’ or ‘atte Bore,’ and have taken their origin from the old ‘bower,’ the rustics’ abode. It is the same word whence has sprung our bucolic ‘boor.’ An old English term for a house or mansion was ‘bold,’ that which was built. The old ‘De la Bolde,’ therefore, will in many cases be the origination of our ‘Bolds.’ Our ‘Halls’ explain themselves, but the older form of ‘Hale’ (once ‘atte Hale’ or ‘de la Hale’) is not so easily traceable. ‘De la Sale,’ sometimes also found as ‘de la Saule,’ was the Norman synonym of the same.
Soon they sembled in sale,
Both kynge and cardinale,
says an old writer. ‘Sale’ and ‘Saul’ are still extant. Names still more curious than these are those taken, not from the residence itself, but from particular rooms in such residence. They are doubtless the result of the feudal system, which, with its formal list of house officers and attendants, required the presence of at least one in each separate chamber. Hence the Norman-introduced parlour, that is, the speaking or reception room, gave us ‘Henry del Parlour,’ or ‘Richard ate Parlour;’ the kitchen, ‘Geoffrey atte Kitchen,’ or ‘Richard del Kechen;’ or the pantry ‘John de la Panetrie,’ or ‘Henry de la Panetrie.’ But I shall have occasion to speak more fully of this by-and-by, so I will say no more here.
There is a pretty word which has been restored from an undeserved oblivion within the last few years by Mr. Tennyson, in his ‘Brook,’ as an idyll perhaps the distinctly finest thing of its kind in the English language. The word referred to is ‘thorpe,’ a village, pronounced ‘throp’ or ‘trop’ by our forefathers. Thus in the ‘Clerkes Tale’ we are told—
Nought far fro this palace honorable,
There stood a thorpe of sight delitable,
In which the poor folk of that village
Hadden their bestes and their harborage;
while in the ‘Assembly of Fowls’ mention is prettily made of