Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

CHAPTER III.

SURNAMES OF OFFICE

A CLASS of surnames which occupies no mean place in our lists is that which has been bequeathed to us by the dignitaries and officers of mediaeval times. Of these sobriquets, while some hold but a precarious existence, a goodly number are firmly established in our midst. On the other hand, as with each other class of our surnames, many that once figured in every register of the period are now extinct. Of these latter not a few have lapsed through the decay of the very systems which brought them into being. While the feudal constitution remained encircled as it was with a complete scheme of service, while the ecclesiastic system of Church government reigned supreme and without a rival, there were numberless offices which in after days fell into desuetude with the principle that held them together. Still, in the great majority of cases the names of these have remained to remind us of their former heyday glory, and to give us an insight into the reality of those now decayed customs to which they owed their rise.

We must be careful, however, at the outset to remark that a certain number of these names ought, strictly speaking, to be set down in our chapter upon sobriquets. They are either vestiges of the many outdoor pageantries and mock ceremonies so popular

SURNAMES OF OFFICE.

in that day, or of the numberless nicknames our fore-fathers loved to affix one upon the other, and in which practice all, high and low alike, joined. For instance, no one could suspect such a sobriquet as 'Alan le Pope,' or 'Hugh le Pape,' the source of one of our commonest and most familiar names, to be derived from the possessor of that loftiest of ecclesiastic offices.' It could be but a nickname, and was doubtless given to some unlucky individual whose overweening and pretentious bearing had brought upon him the affix. So, again, would it be with such a title as 'Robert le Keser,' that is, Caesar, corresponding to the French ' L'empriere' and the obsolete Norman 'le Emperer.' This is a word of frequent occurrence in our earlier poets. Langland says of our Lord, there was

No man so worthie

To be kaiser or king

Of the kyngdom of Juda.

Again, he finely says

Death cam dryvynge after,

And al to duste passed

Kynges and knyghtes,

Kaysers and popes,

Lered and lewed. 2

1 The same remark will apply to our 'Cardinals' and 'Pontifexs.' 'Cardinal' is early found in 'Walter Cardinall' (P.), and 'William Cardynall' (Z).

2 In one of our old mediaeval ' mysteries,' representing the Nativity, one of the Magi says:

Certain Balsam speakys of this thyng,

That of Jacob a star shall spryng,

That shall overcom kasar and kyng.
 — Townley Mysteries.