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
And of fine orfrais had she eke
A chapelet, so seemly on,
Ne wered never maide upon.[351]
The term ‘Broiderer,’[352] however, was the more common, and with him
all textures and all colours and all threads came alike. The Hebrew word
in our Bible, variously rendered as ‘broidered work,’ ‘needlework,’ and
‘raiment of needlework,’ was translated in a day when this would be of
the most familiar import. Our ‘Pointers’ and ‘Poynters’ manufactured the
tagged lace which fastened the hose and doublet together. In
Shakespeare’s ‘1 Henry IV.’ there is a playful allusion to this where
Falstaff, in the act of saying—
Their points being broken,
is interrupted by the response—
Down fell their hose.
It has been asserted that the presence of this name in our modern
directories is entirely the result of later French refugee immigration;
but such registered forms as ‘John le Poyntour,’ ‘Robert le Poynter,’ or
‘William Poyntmakere’ are found in the records of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries with sufficient frequency to justify the belief
that it was a much earlier denizen than many suppose.[353] In the former
‘Henry le Lacer’ or ‘Richard le Lacer’ we have, too, but a
fellow-manufacturer. Lace, it is true, is now rather a delicate fabric
of interwoven threads; once, however, it was but the braided string for
fastening the different articles of dress together. Thus, the
‘shoes-_latchet_’ mentioned in Scripture is a mere diminutive of the
word as thus used. The hose and doublet were invariably so attached. The
verb ‘to lace,’ I need not add, is still entirely employed in this its
literal sense. There were other means, however, of holding the several
garments together, and not a few of which are still brought to our
remembrance in our nomenclature. ‘Adam le Gurdlere’ or ‘Robert le
Girdlere’ speaks for himself. It was for the girdle our former ‘Agnes
Pouchemakers,’ ‘Henry Pouchers,’ ‘Robert le Purseres,’ and ‘Alard le
Bursers’ (when not official) made the leathern pouch carried thus at her
side for greater readiness by the careful housewife. Chaucer, whose
sharply-cut descriptions of the dress of his company are invaluable to
those who would study more closely the habits of the time, tells us of
the Carpenter’s wife that—
By her girdle hung a purse of leather,
Tasseled with silk and pearled with laton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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