"With a company dyde I mete,
As ermytes, monkes, and freres,
Chanons, chartores . . ."
(Cock Lorelles Bote.)
Charter also comes from archaic Fr. chartier (charretier), a carter, and perhaps sometimes from Old Fr. chartrier, "a jaylor; also, a prisoner" (Cotg.), which belongs to Lat. carcer, prison. [Footnote: The sense development of these two words is curious.]
Charters may be from the French town Chartres, but is more likely a perversion of Charterhouse, as Childers is of the obsolete "childer-house," orphanage.
Among lower orders of the church we have Lister, a reader, [Footnote: Found in Late Latin as legista, from Lat. Legere, to read.] Bennet, an exorcist, and Collet, aphetic for acolyte. But each of these is susceptible of another origin which is generally to be preferred. Chaplin is of course for chaplain, Fr. chapelain. The legate appears as Leggatt. Crosier or Crozier means cross-bearer. At the funeral of Anne of Cleves (1557) the mass was executed—
"By thabbott in pontificalibus wthis croysyer, deacon and subdeacon."
Canter, Caunter is for chanter, and has an apparent dim. Cantrell, corresponding to the French name Chantereau. The practice, unknown in English, of forming dims. from occupative names is very common in French, e.g. from Mercier we have Mercerot, from Berger, i.e. Shepherd, a number of derivatives such as Bergerat, Bergeret, Bergerot, etc. Sanger and Sangster were not necessarily ecclesiastical Singers. Converse meant a lay-brother employed as a drudge in a monastery. Sacristan, the man in charge of the sacristy, from which we have Secretan, is contracted into Saxton and Sexton, a name now usually associated with grave-digging and bell-ringing, though the latter task once belonged to the Knowler—
"Carilloneur, a chymer, or knowler of bells" (Cotgrave).
This is of course connected with "knell," though the only Kneller who has become famous was a German named Kniller.