Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

then, our 'Hedgers' and 'Hedgmans' are to be found whose ancestors were once occupied in setting up these pretty barriers. An old song of James I.'s day says:

Come all you farmers out of the country,
Carters, ploughmen, hedgers, and all;

Tom, Dick, and Will, Ralph, Roger, and Humphrey,
Leave off your gestures rusticall. 1

If stakes or pales were used, it. is to our' Pallisers' andobsolete 'Herdleres' our forefathers looked to set them up. The former term I have but come across once as an absolute surname, but such entries as 'Robert Redman, palayser,' or 'James Foster, palycer,' are to be met with occasionally, and at once testify to the origin of the term as found in our existing registers. 'Pallister,' too, is not obsolete; strictly speaking, the feminine form of the above. I find it written 'Pallyster' and 'Palyster' in an old Yorkshire inventory. But there is one more term belonging to this group which I am afraid has disappeared from our family nomenclature — that of 'Tiner,' he who tined or mended hedges. A 'John le Tynere' occurs in the Parliamentary Writs. We are reminded by Verstigan's book on 'Decayed Intelligence' that ' hedging and tining' was a phrase in vogue not more than 200 years ago. Mr. Taylor, in his 'Words and Places,' connects our 'tine' in the tines of a stag's horns' or ' the tines of a fork,' with the same root implying a 'twig.' In our old English forest law a tineman' was an officer very similar to the ' hayward,'the only apparent difference being that he served by night. The two terms are exactly similar in sense.

1 Chappell's Ballad Music, vol. i. 327.

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (COUNTRY).

We are not without relics, too, , of our former means and methods of enriching the glebe. Even here several interesting memorials are preserved to us. 'Marler,'1 'Clayer,' and 'Chalker ' ('Alice le Marlere,' A., Thomas le Chalker,' A., 'Simon le Clayere,' A.), still existing, remind us how commonly the land was manured with marl and other substances of a calcareous nature. Trevisa, writing upon this very subject, says — 'Also in this land (England), under the turf of the land, is good marl found. The thrift of the fatness drieth himself (itself) therein, so that even the thicker the field is marled, the better corn will it bear.' 2 An old rhyme says:

He that marles sand may buy land;

He that marles moss shall suffer no loss;

But he that marles clay throws all away.

An interesting surname of this class is that of 'Acre-man,' or, as it is now generally spelt, 'Acherman,' 'Akerman,' or 'Aikman,' for it is far from being of modern German introduction, as some have supposed. In the Hundred Rolls and elsewhere it appears in such entries as 'Alexander le Acherman,' 'Roger le Acreman,' 'Peter le Akerman,' and 'John le Akurman.' His was indeed a common and familiar sobriquet, and we are but once more reminded by it of the day when the acre was what it really denoted — the ager, or land

1 Thus we find in the forest charter of Edward HI.: 'Unus quisque liber homo faciat in bosco suo vel in terra sua, quam habet in foresta marleram (marl-pit), fossatum, vel terram arabile, &c. (Stat. of Realm, vol i. p. 121.)

2 As there was the 'Miller' and the 'Milward,' so there was the 'Marler' and the 'Marlward:' 'Alice Ie Marlene' (H.R.), 'John Marle-ward' (H. R.).