Goodbeer is explained by Bardsley as a perversion of Godber (Chapter VII), which may be true, but the name is also to be taken literally. We have Ger. Gutbier, and the existence of Sourale in the Hundred Rolls and Sowerbutts at the present day justifies us in accepting both Goodbeer and Goodale at their face-value. But Rice is an imitative form of Welsh Rhys, Reece, and Salt, when not derived from Salt in Stafford, is from Old Fr. sault, a wood, Lat. saltus. [Footnote: This is common in place-names, and I should suggest, as a guess, that Sacheverell is from the village of Sault-Chevreuil-du-Tronchet (Manche).] It is doubtful whether the name Cheese is to be included here. Jan Kees, for John Cornelius, said to have been a nickname for a Hollander, may easily have reached the Eastern counties. Bardsley's earliest instance for the name is John Chese, who was living in Norfolk in 1273. But still I find Furmage as a medieval surname. We also have the dealer in meat represented by the classical example of Hogsflesh, with which we may compare Mutton and Veal, two names which may be seen fairly near each other in Hammersmith Road (but for these see also Chapter XXIII), and I have known a German named Kalbfleisch. Names of this kind would sometimes come into existence through the practice of crying wares; though if Mr. Rottenherring, who was a freeman of York in 1332, obtained his in this way, he must have deliberately ignored an ancient piece of wisdom. CHAPTER XVI. A SPECIMEN PROBLEM: RUTTER "Howe sayst thou, man? am not I a joly rutter?" (Skelton, Magnyfycence, 1. 762.) The fairly common name Rutter is a good example of the difficulty of explaining a surname derived from a trade or calling no longer practised. Even so careful an authority as Bardsley has gone hopelessly astray over this name. He says, "German ritter, a rider, i.e. a trooper," and quotes from Halliwell, "rutter, a rider, a trooper, from the German; a name given to mercenary soldiers engaged from Brabant, etc." Now this statement is altogether opposed to chronology. The name occurs as le roter, rotour, ruter in the Hundred Rolls of 1273, i.e. more than two centuries before any German name for trooper could possibly have become familiar in England. Any stray Mid. High Ger. Riter would have been assimilated to the cognate Eng. Rider. It is possible that some German Reuters have become English Rutters in comparatively modern times, but the German surname Reuter has nothing to do with a trooper. It represents Mid. High Ger. riutaere, a clearer of land, from the verb riuten (reuten), corresponding to Low Ger. roden, and related to our royd, a clearing (Chapter XII). This word is apparently not connected with our root, though it means to root out, but ultimately belongs to a root ru which appears in Lat. rutrum, a spade, rutabulum, a rake, etc.