Perchance of similar origin, but more probably from the old ‘ped,’ the basket they carried, are our ‘Pedders,’ ‘Peddars,’ and ‘Pedmans.’ ‘Martin le Peddere’ or ‘Hugh le Pedder’ or ‘William Pedman’ was a common entry at this time. On many parts of the English coast a fish-basket is still familiarly known as a ‘ped,’ and Mr. Halliwell, I see, quotes from another writer a statement to the effect that in Norwich, up to a recent day, or even now, an assemblage whither women bring their small wares of eggs, chickens, and other farm produce for sale, is called a ‘ped-market.’ It is likely, therefore, that with these we must ally ‘Godewyn le Hodere’ or ‘John le Hottere,’ who derived their sobriquets, I doubt not, from the fact of their carrying their _hods_ or panyers on their backs, just as masons do now those wooden trays for mortar which bear the same name.[289] Their very titles remind us that our ‘Huckers,’ ‘Hawkers,’ and ‘Hucksters,’ relics of the old ‘William le Huckere,’ ‘Simon le Hauckere,’ or ‘Peter le Huckster,’ were from the first good at haggling and chaffering wherever a bargain was concerned. Our ‘Kidders,’ the ‘William le Kyderes’ of the fourteenth century, were of a similar type, whatever their origin, which is doubtful. Probably, however, we must refer them to the ‘kid’ or ‘kit,’ the rush-plaited basket they carried their goods in. We still speak of ‘the whole kit of them,’ meaning thereby the collective mass of any set of articles.[290] This view is strengthened—we might almost say proved—by the fact of a ‘Robert Butrekyde’ being found in the Hundred Rolls of this period. This would be a sobriquet given to some one from the basket he was wont to bear to and from the country market where he carried on his calling. Later on we find it used for a large mug or bowl. In the ‘Farming Book of Henry Best,’ written in 1641, we find it said—‘Some will cutte their cake and putte (it) into the creame, and this feast is called the creame-potte or creame-kitte’ (p. 93). The kidder’s usual _confrère_ was the ‘Badger’—up to the seventeenth century an ordinary term for one who had a special licence to purchase corn from farmers at the provincial markets and fairs, and then dispose of it again elsewhere without the penalties of engrossing. It is generally said the sobriquet arose from the habits of the four-legged animal of that name in stealing and storing up the grain. The more probable solution, however, is that it is but a corruption of ‘baggager,’ from his method of carriage. But we must not forget in our list of early English strolling merchants that the wandering friars themselves were oftentimes to be met with bearing treasure wherewith to tempt the housewife, and no bad bargainers, if we may accept the statement made against them by an old political song:—