I must stop here. We have surveyed, comparatively speaking, but a few of our local surnames. From the little I have been able to advance, however, it will be clear, I think, that with regard to the general subject of nomenclature these additional sobriquets had become a necessity. The population of England, less than two millions at the period of the Conquest, was rapidly increasing, and, which is of far more importance so far as surnames are concerned, increasing _corporately_. Population was becoming every day less evenly diffused. Communities were fast being formed, and as circumstances but more and more induced men to herd themselves together, so did the necessity spring up for each to have a more fixed and determinate title than his merely personal or baptismal one, by which he might be more currently known among his fellows. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III. SURNAMES OF OFFICE. A class of surnames which occupies no mean place in our lists is that which has been bequeathed to us by the dignitaries and officers of mediæval times. Of these sobriquets, while some hold but a precarious existence, a goodly number are firmly established in our midst. On the other hand, as with each other class of our surnames, many that once figured in every register of the period are now extinct. Of these latter not a few have lapsed through the decay of the very systems which brought them into being. While the feudal constitution remained encircled as it was with a complete scheme of service, while the ecclesiastic system of Church government reigned supreme and without a rival, there were numberless offices which in after days fell into desuetude with the principle that held them together. Still, in the great majority of cases the names of these have remained to remind us of their former heyday glory, and to give us an insight into the reality of those now decayed customs to which they owed their rise.