Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

commonly met with in mediaeval records, are, nevertheless, I say, not to be put down as coeval with the Conquest, but as after-introductions when England was securely won. There befell Norman names of this class, however, what I have shown still more commonly to have befallen those of a similar, but more Saxon, category. If these prefixes 'de la,' 'del,' and 'du' are sometimes found retained, they are as often conspicuous by their absence. Thus while at an early date after the Conquest we find the Saxon 'Atwood ' met by the Norman 'Dubois,' it is equally true that they had already to battle with simple 'Wood' and 'Boys' or 'Boyce.' Thus it was we find so early the Saxon 'Beech' faced by the Norman 'Fail' or 'Fayle,' 'Ash' by 'Freen,' 'Frean,' or 'Freyne,' Hasell' by 'Coudray,' 'Alder' by 'Aunay,' and, let us say, for want of a 'Walnut,' 'Nut' by 'Noyes.' In the same way our 'Halls ' or 'Hales ' were matched by 'Meynell' (mesnil), 'Hill' by 'Montaigne,' now also 'Mountain,' 'Mead ' or 'Medd,' or 'Field,' by 'Prall' or 'Frail,' relics of the old 'prayell,' a little meadow. I have just set 'Wood' by our 'Boys' and 'Boyces.' To these we must add our 'Busks,' 'Bushes,' 'Busses,' all from ' bois' or ' bosc.' The 'taillis,' or underwood, too, gives us 'Tallis,' and the union of both in 'Taillebois' or 'Talboys,' as we now have it, combines the names of two of our best church musicians — 'Tallis' and 'Boyce.' This comparison of early introduced Norman with names of a Saxon

LOCAL SURNAMES.

local character we might carry on to any extent, but this must suffice — illustrations and not categories are all we can pretend to attempt.

But these were not our only foreign introduced names. Coeval with the arrival of these later Norman designations a remarkable peculiarity began to make itself apparent in the vast number of names that poured in from various and more distant parts of the Continent. That they came for purposes of trade, and to settle down into positions that the Saxons themselves should have occupied, is undoubted. The lethargy of the Saxon population at this period would be extraordinary, if it were not so easily to be accounted for. There was no heart in the nation. The Saxons had become a conquered people, and, although the spirit of Hereward the Wake was quenched, there had come that settled sullen humour which, finding no outlet for active enmity, fed in spirit upon itself, and increased with the pampering. To punish open disaffection is easy ; to eradicate by the stern arm of power such a feeling as this is impossible. Time alone can do it, and that but slowly. More than a century after this we find Robin Hood the idol of popular sympathy; no national hero has ever eclipsed him, and yet, putting sentiment aside, he was naught but a robber, an outlawed knave. He was but a vent for the still lingering current of a people's feelings. It was but the Saxon and Norman over again.

We can easily imagine, then, if the spirit of the people was so lethargic as this, at how low an ebb would be the commercial enterprise of this period. No country was there whose resources for self-aggran-