Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

But, syre, I praye you, if you tell can,

Declare to me, when God made man

(I meane by our forefather Adam),

Whether that he had a berde then;

And if he had, who did hym shave,

Since that a barber he could not have.

I have no doubt it is here we must set our' Simisters,'relics, as they probably are, of such a name as 'John Somayster,' or 'William Summister.' The summaster seems from its orthography to have represented one who acted as a clerk or comptroller, something akin to the chamberlain or breviter, whom I shall mention almost immediately; one, in fact, who cast up and certified accounts. Holinshed used the word as if in his day it were of familiar import. Dwelling upon a certain event, he says — 'Over this, if the historian be long, he is accompted a trifler; if he be short, he is taken for a summister.1

In such days as those, what with the number of personal retainers and the excess of hospitality expected of the feudal chief, the culinary department occupied far from an insignificant position in regard to the general accessories of the baronial establishment. Our 'Cooks,' or 'Cokes,' or 'Cookmans,'relics of the old ' Roger le Coke,' or 'Joan le Cook,'or 'William Cokeman,' even then ruled supreme over that most absolute of all monarchies, the kitchen; our 'Kitchenmans' (now found also as 'Kitchingham'), Kitcheners,' and ' Kitchens,' or ' de la Kitchens,'

1 The more correct form is found in the name of 'William Sum-master,' who is met with in an old Oxford record as having deposited, in 1462, a caution for 'Sykyll-Halle,' of which he was principal. (Vide Mun. Acad. Oxon.)

SURNAMES OF OFFICE.

as they were once written, reminding us who it was that aided them to turn the spit or handle the posnet. Our 'Pottingers' represent the once common 'Robert le Potager,' or 'Walter le Potager,' the soup-maker. Potage was the ordinary term for soup, thickened well with vegetables and meat.' Thus in the 'Boke of Curtasye' the guest is bid

Suppe not with grete sowndynge,

Neither potage ne other thynge

a rule which still holds good in society. We are well aware of the ingredients of the dish which our Bible translators have still bequeathed to us as 'a mess of potage.' In its present corrupted form of ' porridge' this notion of a mess rather than of a soup is still preserved. Another interesting servitorship of this class has well-nigh escaped our notice — that of the hastiler: he who turned the haste or spit. In the Close Rolls we find a 'Thurstan Ie Hastier' recorded, and in the Parliamentary Writs such names as 'Henry Hastiler' and 'William

1 A strange and yet most natural change gradually crept over this word. There can be no doubt that the original ' potager,'or ' potinger,' had his place in the baronial household as the superintendent of the mess-making department. From his knowledge of herbs thus acquired he evidently came to be looked upon in a medicinal capacity. Thus the term came to be used synonymously with ' apothecary.' In the Archaeologia (vol. xxii) we find it recorded that one of the horses connected with the household of James V. of Scotland was called ' le Pottinger' — ' uno equo pharmacopile, vulgo le Pottinger.'In an old university record, dated 1439, I find, too, a certain 'Ralph Prestbury' mentioned as sworn to keep the peace towards ' Thomam Halle, potygare, alias chirurgicum.' (Mun. Acad. Oxon, p. 523.) Probably, however, it was the lowly herbalist, rather than the professional druggist, who acquired the sobriquet.