English Surnames: Their Sources and SignificationsBardsley, Charles Wareing Endell
History
English Surnames: Their Sources and Significations
Bardsley, Charles Wareing Endell
Names, English; Names, Personal -- English
Our ‘Authorised Version’ when it speaks of ‘the wall daubed with
untempered mortar,’ still preserves their memorial, and our ‘Plasters’
and ‘Plaisters’ are but sturdy scions of many an early registered ‘Adam
le Plastier,’ ‘Joanna le Plaisterer,’ or ‘John le Cementarius.’ The last
of this class I would mention is ‘Robert Pargeter’ or ‘William
Pergiter,’ a name inherited by our ‘Pargiters’ and ‘Pargeters.’ This was
an artisan of a higher order. He laboured, in fact, at the more
ornamental plaster work. In the accounts of Sir John Howard, A.D. 1467,
is the following entry:—‘Item, the vj day of Aprylle my master made a
covenaunt with Saunsam the tylere, that he schalle pergete, and whighte
and bemefelle all the new byldynge, and he schalle have for his labore
xiijs. ivd.’[244] It is used metaphorically, but I cannot add very
happily, in an old translation of Ovid—
Thus having where they stood in vaine complained of their wo,
When night drew neare they bad adue, and eche gave kisses sweete
Unto the parget on their side, the which did never meete.
‘Roger le Peynture’ or ‘Henry le Peintur,’ ‘Ralph le Gilder’ and ‘Robert
le Stainer,’ were engaged, I imagine, in the equally careful work of
decorating passage and hall within, and all have left offspring enough
to keep up their perpetual memorial. Thus, within and without, the house
itself has afforded room for little change in our nomenclature, though
the artisans themselves have now a very different work to perform to
that of their mediæval prototypes. The increase of wealth and a
progressive culture have not merely taught but demanded a more careful
and refined workmanship in the details of ordinary housebuilding. We may
readily imagine, however, even in this early day, how little the simple
bondsman, or freer husbandman, had to do with such artisans as even then
existed. I do not find, at least the exceptions are of the rarest, that
these workmen dwelt in the more rural districts at all. Their names are
to be met with in the towns, where the richer tradespeople and burgesses
were already beginning to copy the fashions and habits of life of the
higher aristocracy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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