Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

Similarly the 'vaultrier' was he who unleashed them. It has been a matter of doubt whether or no the more modern 'feuterer' owes his origin to this term, but the gradations found in such registrations as 'John le Veutrer,' 'Geoffrey le Veuterer,' and 'Walter le Feuterer,' to be met with in the rolls of this period, set all question, I should imagine, at rest. An old poem, describing the various duties of these officers and their charges, says

A halpeny the hunte takes on the day

For every hounde the sothe to say;

The vewtrer, two cast of brede he tase,

Two lesshe of greyhounds if that he has.

Fewter' and 'Futter,' however, seem to be the only relics we now possess of this once important care. Such names as 'John le Berner' or 'Thomas le Berner,' common enough in old rolls, must be distinguished from our more aristocratic 'Berners.' The berner was a special houndsman who stood with fresh relays of dogs ready to unleash them if the chase grew heated and long. In the Parliamentary Rolls he is termed a ' yeoman-berner.' Our 'Hornblows,'curtailed from 'Hornblower,' and simpler 'Blowers,'would seem to be closely related to the last, for the horn figured as no mean addition by its jubilant sounds to the excitement of the chase. He who used it held an office that required all the attention he could bring to bear upon it. The dogs were not unleashed until he had sounded the blast, and if at any time from his elevated station he caught sight of the quarry, he was by the manner of winding his instrument to certify to the huntsman the peculiar class to which it belonged. In the Hundred Rolls we find

1 The Hundred Rolls have the abbreviated form in 'Godfrey le Futur.'

SURNAMES OF OFFICE.

him inscribed as 'Blowhorn,' a mere reversal of syllables. Of a more general and professional character probably would be our 'Hunters,' 'Huntsmans,' and 'Hunts,' not to mention the more Norman 'John le Venner' or 'Richard Fenner.' It may not be known to all our 'Hunts' that theirs, the shorter form, was the most familiar term in use at that time; hence the number that at present exist. We are told in the 'Knight's Tale' of the

Hunte and horne, and houndes him beside;

while but a little further on he speaks of

The hunte ystrangled with the wilde beres.

Forms like 'Walter le Hunte ' or 'Nicholas le Hunte ' are very common to the old records. As another proof of the general use of this word we may cite its compounds. 'Borehunte' carries us back to the day when the wild boar ranged the forest's deeper gloom. 'Wolfhunt,' represented in the Inquisitiones by such a sobriquet as 'Walter le Wolfhunte,' reminds us that Edgar did not utterly exterminate that savage beast of prey, as is oftentimes asserted. A family of this name held lands in the Peak of Derbyshire at this period by the service of keeping the forest clear of wolves. In the forty-third year of Edward III. one Thomas Engeine held lands in Pitchley, in the county of Northampton, by service of finding at his own cost certain dogs for the destructionof wolves, foxes, &c., in the counties of Northampton, Rutland, Oxford, Essex, and Buckingham ; nay, as late as the eleventh year of Henry VI. Sir Robert Plumpton held one borate of land in Nottinghamshire, by service of winding a horn, and chasing or frighten-