The early husbandman required but little decorative refinement for his homestead. To keep out the cold blast and the driving rain, to have a niche by the fireside comfortable and warm, this was all he asked or wished for. His roof was all but invariably composed of thack or thatch, and every village had its ‘thatcher.’ Busy indeed would he be as the late autumn drew nigh, and stack and stead must be shielded from the keen and chilling winter. The Hundred Roll forms of the surname are ‘Joan le Thaccher’ and ‘Thomas le Thechare;’ the Parliamentary Writs ‘John le Thacher;’ while the more modern directory furnishes us with such changes rung upon the same as ‘Thatcher,’ ‘Thacker’[235] (still a common provincialism for the occupation), and ‘Thackery,’ or ‘Thackeray,’ or Thackwray.’[236] These latter are of course but akin to the old ‘John le Fermery,’ or ‘Richard le Vicary,’ the termination added being the result of popular whim or caprice. Our ‘Readers’ had less to do with book lore than we might have supposed, being but descendants of the mediæval ‘William le Redere,’[237] another term for the same kind of labour. The old ‘Hellier,’ or ‘Helier,’ carries us back to a once well-known root. To ‘hill,’ or ‘hele,’ was to cover, and a ‘hilyer’ was a roofer.[238] Sir John Maundville says with regard to the Tartars, ‘the helynge of their houses, and ... the dores ben alle of woode;’ and John of Trevisa speaks of the English ‘whyt cley and red’ as useful ‘for to make crokkes and other vessels, and barned tyyl to _hele_ with houses and churches.’ Gower, too, uses the word prettily, but perfectly naturally, when he says— She took up turves (turfs) of the lond, Withouten help of mannes hond, All heled with the grene grass.[239] Amongst other of the many forms that still survive surnominally we have ‘Hillyer,’ ‘Hillier,’ ‘Hellier,’ ‘Hellyer,’ and the somewhat unpleasant ‘Helman’ and ‘Hellman.’ Earlier instances may be found in the Hundred Rolls in such entries as ‘Robert le Heliere’ or ‘Will. Heleman.’ Our ‘Tylers’ are well and quaintly represented in the early rolls. One mediæval spelling of this good old-fashioned name is ‘Tyghelere’ (Adam le Tyghelere, P.W.), while such forms as ‘le Tuglur,’ ‘le Tuler,’ or ‘le Tewler,’ as representatives of the Norman-French vocabulary, meet us on every hand. Whether any of their descendants have had the courage to reproduce any of these renderings I cannot say. I do not find any in our directories. Our ‘Smiths’ have not been quite so qualmish. With the tylers we may fitly introduce our ‘Shinglers,’ they who used the stout oaken wood in the place of burnt clay. Churches were oftentimes so covered. Mr. Halliwell quotes the following somewhat sarcastic couplet:— Flouren cakes beth the schingles alle Of cherche, cloister, boure, and halle.