Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

in the days we are speaking of, was one who held by tenure of maintaining a hobbie -- a kind of small horse, then familiarly so known. A song on the times, written in the fourteenth century, and complaining of the manner in which the upper classes plundered the poor, says

And those hoblurs, namelich,

That husband benimeth eri of ground,

Men ne should them bury in none chirch,

But cast them out as a hound.

Later on, by its fictitious representation in the Morris dances of the May-day sports, the hobby came to denote the mere dummy, and now as such affords much scope for equestrian skill in the Rotten Row of our nurseries. What tricks time plays with these words, to be sure, and what a connexion for our 'Hoblers' and ' Hobblers ' to meditate upon. Our 'Bannermans' are Scotch, but they represent an office, whether in England or the North, whose importance it would be hard to estimate at this period. Nor are we without traces in our nomenclature of its existence in more southern districts. Our not unfamiliar 'Pennigers' and ' Pennigars' are but the former official pennager, he who bore the ensign or standard of his Iord. They figure even in more general and festive pageants. In the York Procession we find walking alone and between the different craftsmen the 'Pennagers.' Probably they bore the ensigns of that then

Thus a list of the royal stud at Eltham, in the seventeenth year of Henry VIII., includes 'coursers, 30; young horses, 8;barbary horses, 4; stallions, 8;hobbyes and geldings, 12.' (Collection of Ordinances, p. 200,)

SURNAMES OF OFFICE.

important corporate city. I have but recently referred to 'Robert Clavynger' (H.) and the probability of his having carried the club or mace or key of his superiors in office. All or well-nigh all the above names find themselves well represented in the registersof the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Our eye falls at once on an 'Andrew le Gramary,' a 'Richard le Gramayre,' a 'Thomas le Skolmayster,' a 'Warin le Latimer,' a ' William le Latiner,' a 'Jordan le Vavasur,'a 'Simon le Knyt,' a 'Gilbert le Bacholer,' a 'Walter le Squier,' or a 'Nicholas Armiger.'

A curious relic of the military tactics of mediaeval times is presented to our notice in our ' Reuters,'Ritters,' and 'Rutters.' The old English forms are found in such entries as 'Thomas le Reuter,' or ' Ranulph le Ruter.' The root of the term is probably the German ritter, or rider, a name given at this period to certain mercenary soldiers oftentimes hired by our English sovereigns out of Brabant and the surrounding country. Thus we find William of Newburgh, under the date 1173, saying that Henry II. 'stipendarias Bribantionum copias, quas Rutas vocant, accersivit.' (Lib. ii. cap. 27.) Trivet, relating the same fact, says (p. 73), 'Conduxit Brabanzones et Rutarios.1 An old song begins

Rutterkyn is come into owre towne,

In a cloke withoute cote or gowne,

Save a raggid hood to kover his crowne
Like a rutter hoyda.

1 In the Life of Hugh of Lincoln mention is made of 'Marchadeus princeps Rutariorum'(p. 264). See the glossary, however, from which I have derived much of the alove.

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