Careful investigation into the origin and precise nature of the petty constable's office has failed to set finally at rest the many discussions that have arisen from time to time, and has left some minor points still obscure; the essentials, however, are sufficiently clear for the purposes of the present inquiry. The word "constable" was imported by the Normans, but its etymology is not quite certain; formerly it was said to be derived from "Conning," a king,[56] and "Stapel," a stay or prop, and to signify "the king's right-hand man," but this is an unlikely solution, because the invaders despised the Anglo-Saxon language, and would not use a word which was partly derived from that tongue. Latterly the derivation "Comes-stabuli," meaning an Equerry or Master of the Horse, has been generally accepted as correct. In England the title has been applied to a variety of functionaries, some high and some low, who had little in common beyond the fact that they all owed their authority to the Crown. The first mention of petty constables occurs in 1252, in a writ of Henry III. for enforcing watch and ward. This writ provides for the employment of these officers in parish and township, but it is more than likely that the office was not then a new one, because the word "constable" is there used without any explanation being added, and it may therefore be assumed that its meaning was a matter of common knowledge. The Statute of Winchester, it will be remembered, ordained that there should be two constables in each hundred, to carry out the inspection of arms; these officers were probably connected with the Militia, and were closely allied to, if not identical with, the High Constables of later date; in any case they must not be confused with the petty constables, who, according to Blackstone, were so called when they added the duties of assistants to the High Constable, to their ancient business of keeping the peace, and who, as Lambard explains, were modified tythingmen; "when there be many tythingmen in one parish, there only one of them is a constable for the king, and the rest do serve but as the ancient tythingmen did." The transition from the Anglo-Saxon tythingman to the petty constable, that is to say, from the chief frankpledge to the Justice's assistant was very gradual, and it is impossible to determine a rigid boundary line between the two. All we can say is that the term "constable" was introduced as early as the year 1252, and that the term "tything man" continued to be occasionally made use of down to the beginning of the nineteenth century: that first and last the offices were in effect the same does not admit of doubt, both were primarily _ex officio_ guardians of the peace, and when the tything man came to be commonly called "constable," it does not follow that the change marked the creation of a new office.