carries us to the first stage, and to the first dealer. In our ‘Woolers’ and ‘Woolmans,’ in our obsolete ‘Woolmongers’ and ‘Woolbuyers,’[315] in our ‘Packers’[316] and once flourishing ‘Woolpackers,’ and in our ‘Lanyers’ and ‘Laners,’ relics of the old and more Norman ‘Bartholomew le Laner’ or ‘John le Lanier,’ we can see once more the train of laden mules bearing their fleecy treasure to the larger towns or distant coast. No wonder that Piers Plowman and others should make familiar mention of the ‘pack-needle,’ when we reflect upon the enormous number of sacks that would be in constant use for this purpose; and no wonder ‘Adam le Sakkere’ (_i.e._ ‘Sacker’), and ‘Henry le Canevaser’ are to be met with as busied in their provision.[317] Another proof of the engrossing importance of this one English article of commerce is left us in our ‘Staplers.’ The ‘stapleware’ of a town was, and is still, that which is the chief commodity dealt in by that particular market. A ‘stapler,’ however, has for centuries been a generally accepted title for a woolmerchant, and has therefore absorbed the more general meaning the word ought to have conveyed. The first stage towards manufacture would be the process of carding the raw and tangled material, and numberless are the ‘Carders,’ ‘Combers,’ and ‘Kempsters,’[318] or ‘Kemsters,’ who remind us of this. In these latter sobriquets we have but varied forms of the same root ‘cemb,’ to comb. We still talk poetically of ‘unkempt locks,’ and we are told of Emelie in the ‘Knight’s Tale’ that— Her bright hair kembed was, untressed all. The Norman corresponding name is found in ‘Robert le Peinnur’ or ‘William le Puigneur,’ but unless in our ‘Pinners’ (a supposition not unnatural) it has left no descendants. But even these are not all. It is with them we must associate our ‘Towzers’ and ‘Tozers,’ from the old ‘touse’ allied to ‘tease’—they who cleared the fibre from all entanglements. Spenser talks of curs ‘tousing’ the poor bear at the baiting, and I need not remind the reader that in our somewhat limited canine nomenclature, ‘Towzer,’ as a name for a dog of more pugnacious propensities, occupies a by no means mean place. As applicable to the trade in question, Gower uses the word when he says, in his ‘Confessio Amantis’:— What schepe that is full of wulle Upon his backe they tose and pulle.[319]