Missing Tradesmen
With Barker it seems natural to mention Mewer, of which I find one representative in the London Directory. The medieval le muur had charge of the mews in which the hawks were kept while moulting (Fr. muer, Lat. mutare). Hence the phrase “mewed up.” The word seems to have been used for any kind of coop. Chaucer tells us of the Franklin—
“Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in muw” (A, 349).
I suspect that some of the Muirs (Chapter XII) spring from this important office. Similarly Clayer has been absorbed by the local Clare, Kayer, the man who made keys, by Care, and Blower, whether of horn or bellows, has paid tribute to the local Bloor, Blore.
Sewer, an attendant at table, aphetic for Old Fr. asseour, a setter, is now a very rare name. As we know that sewer, a drain, became shore, it is probable that the surname Shore sometimes represents this official or servile title. And this same name Shore, though not particularly common, and susceptible of a simple local origin, labours under grave suspicion of having also enriched itself at the expense of the medieval le suur, the shoemaker, Lat. sutor-em, whence Fr. Lesueur. This would inevitably become Sewer and then Shore, as above. Perhaps, in the final reckoning, Shaw is not altogether guiltless, for I know of one family in which this has replaced earlier Shore.
The medieval le suur brings us to another problem, viz. the poor show made by the craftsmen who clothed the upper and lower extremities of our ancestors. The name Hatter, once frequent enough, is almost extinct, and Capper is not very common. The name Shoemaker has met with the same fate, though the trade is represented by the Lat. Sutor, whence Scot. Souter. Here belong also Cordner, Codner, 1 Old Fr. cordouanier (cordonnier), a cordwainer, a worker in Cordovan leather, and Corser, Cosser, earlier corviser, corresponding to the French name Courvoisier, also derived from Cordova. Chaucer, in describing the equipment of Sir Thopas, mentions
“His shoon of cordewane” (B, 1922).
The scarcity of Groser, grocer, is not surprising, for the word, aphetic for engrosser, originally meaning a wholesale dealer, one who sold en gros, is of comparatively late occurrence. His medieval representative was Spicer.
On the other hand, many occupative titles which are now obsolete, or practically so, still survive strongly as surnames. Examples of these will be found in chapters xvii.–xx.
Some occupative names are rather deceptive. Kisser, which is said still to exist, means a maker of cuishes, thigh-armour, Fr, cuisses—
“Helm, cuish, and breastplate streamed with gore.”
(Lord of the Isles, iv. 33.)
Corker is for caulker, i.e. one who stopped the chinks of ships and casks, originally with lime (Lat. calx)—
“Sir, we have a chest beneath the hatches, caulk’d and bitumed ready” (Pericles iii. 1).
Cleaver represents Old Fr, clavier, a mace-bearer, Lat. clava, a club, or a door-keeper, Lat. clavis, a key. Perhaps even clavus, a nail, must also be considered, for a Latin vocabulary of the fifteenth century tells us—
“Claves, -vos vel -vas qui fert sit claviger.”
Neither Bowler nor Scorer are connected with cricket. The former made wooden bowls, and the latter was sometimes a scourer, or scout, Mid. Eng. scurrour, a word of rather complicated origin, but perhaps more frequently a peaceful scullion, from Fr. écurer, to scour, Lat. ex-curare—
“Escureur, a scourer, cleanser, feyer” (Cotgrave).2
A Leaper did not always leap (Chapter XVII). The verb had also in Mid. English the sense of running away, so that the name may mean fugitive. In some cases it may represent a maker of leaps, i.e. fish baskets, or perhaps a man who hawked fish in such a basket.
A Slayer made slays, part of a weaver’s loom, and a Bloomer worked in a bloom-smithy, from Anglo-Sax. blo-ma, a mass of hammered iron. Weightman and Warman represent Mid. Eng, waþeman, hunter; cf. the common German surname Weidemann, of cognate origin. Reader and Booker are not always literary. The former is for Reeder, a thatcher—
“Redare of howsys, calamator, arundinarius” (Prompt. Parv.)—
and the latter is a Norman variant of Butcher, as already mentioned.
Notes
1 Confused, of course, with the local Codnor (Derbyshire)
2 Feyer: A sweeper, now perhaps represented by Fayer.