Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

Nonne, A.), and the Dorturer, represented in olden registers by such a name as 'Robert le Dorturer,' he who looked to the arrangements of the dourtour, or dormitory

His death saw I by revelation,

Sayde this frere, at home in our dortour.1

The word still existed in the sixteenth century, as is evidenced by Heywood's use of it. He says

The tongue is assigned of wordes to be sorter;

The mouth is assigned to be the tongue's darter;

The teeth are assigned to be the tongue's porter;

But wisdom is 'signed to tye the tongue shorter.

The figure is somewhat forced, but it has its beauty. The 'Fermerer,' now found as 'Fermor' and 'Firmer,' was he who superintended the infirmary. Only a few lines further on, in the earlier of the two poems from which I last quoted, we find Chaucer making mention of

Our sexton, and our fermerere,

That have been trove freres fifty year.

The 'Tale of a Monk,' too, begins

A black munk of an abbaye

Was enfermer of alle I herd say —

He was halden an hali man

Imange his felaus.

The fermery was the hospital or ' spital ' 2 attached to each religious house, and was under the immediate control of the above-mentioned officer. It is with him,

1 1n the Monastical Church of Durham, written in 1593, we are told of the 'Cellarer' that ' the chambre where he dyd lye was in the dorter.' (P. 83.)

2 Hence the local surname 'Spital' or 'Spittle:' 'Richard ate Spitale,' M. 'Gilbert de Hospitall,' A.

SURNAMES OF OFFICE.

therefore, we may fitly ally 'Robert le Almoner,' or Michael le Aumoner,' a name still abiding with us, and representative of him who dispensed the alms to the lazars and the poor. It is in allusion to this his office that Robert Brunne in one of his tales says:

Seynt Jone, the aumenere,1

Saith Pers, was an okerere

And was very coveytous

And a niggard and avarus.

Of the same officer in more lordly society the 'Boke of Curtasye' thus speaks

The Aumonere a rod schalle have in honde,

An office for almes, I understonde;

Alle the broken mete he kepys in wait

To dele to pore men at the gate.

Many of those who were supported at this time and in this manner were lepers. We can take up no record, large or small, of the period without coming across a 'Nicholas ' or 'Walter le Leper.' Leprosy was introduced into Western Europe with the return of the Crusaders. To such a degree had it spread in England, that in 1346 Edward III. was compelled to issue a royal mandate enjoining those 'smitten with the blemish of leprosy' to ' betake themselves to places in the country, solitary, and notably distant' from the dwellings of men. Such a distinctive designation as this would readily cling to a man, even after

1 Our 'Amners' are but a corruption of this same name. The word had become early s0 corrupted — ' For in tymes paste kynges have geven theyr bysshoprycks to theyr councellers, chaplaynes . . . . or to suche which have taken paynes in theyr householde, as amners, and deans of the chappell,' &c. (A Supplycacion to our moste Soveraigne Lorde Kynge Henry the Eyght, p. 34.)