The masculine term, I need not remind Scotchmen, is still in colloquial use across the Border, and that it was once so in England our many ‘Souters,’ ‘Sowters,’ and ‘Suters,’ and ‘Suitors,’ misleading as these latter are, are sufficient evidence. Such entries as ‘Andrew le Soutere,’ ‘Robert le Souter,’ or ‘Richard le Sutor’ are common to old registers. In the ‘Promptorium Parvulorum’ ‘sowtare’ is defined as a ‘cordewaner’ or ‘cordynare,’ and this at once brings us to our ‘Cordwaners,’ ‘Cordiners,’ and ‘Codners.’ They were so termed because the goatskin leather they used came, or was supposed to have come, from Cordova in Spain. In the ‘Rime of Sire Thopas,’ that personage is thus described:— His hair, his beard was like safroun, That to his girdle raught adown, His shoon of cordewane; Of Brugges were his hosen brown, His robe was of ciclatoun, That cost many a jane. In the ‘Libel on English Policy,’ too, we find it said of Portugal— Their londe hath oyle, wyne, osey, wex, and grain, Fygues, reysyns, honey and cordwayne. In the Hundred Rolls it is represented by such a name as ‘Hugh le Cordwaner’ or ‘Ranulph le Cordewaner.’[357] ‘William le Corviser,’ from the same records, or ‘Durand le Corveser,’ held a name which struggled for some time for a place, but had finally to collapse.[358] ‘Cobbler’ (‘Richard le Cobeler,’ A.), though it has existed as a name of occupation fully as long as any of the above, has, I believe, never been able so far to overcome the dislike to the fact of its being a mere mending or patchwork trade as to obtain for itself an hereditary place in our nomenclature. ‘Cosier’ has fared better, as have ‘Clouter’ and ‘Cloutman,’ relics of the old ‘John’ or ‘Stephen le Clutere,’ why I do not know. We all remember how the inhabitants of Gibeon ‘did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old and rent, and bound up, and old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them.’ Another name we may notice here is that of ‘Patten-maker,’ a ‘James Patyn-makere’ being found enrolled in a Norwich guild of 1385. Cocke Lorelle mentions among others:— Alys Easy a gay tale-teller, Also Peter Patynmaker.[359]