Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

but I doubt whether either is represented now. The last of this class of instrumentalists we may mention is ' William le Sautreour,' he who struck the 'gay sawtrye,' as Chaucer terms it. The more correct form of the word was ' psaltery.' It was specially used as an accompaniment for the voice, hence it is freely used in this sense in the Authorized Version. I do not doubt myself that some of our 'Salters' are but a change rung on the mediaeval 'Sawtrer.'The 'Fluter,' I believe, has left no descendants, but in 'Nicholas le Flontere' he was to be met with at this date, and, I need not say, would be as familiar as he would be acceptable on such an occasion as this. The lusty young Squire was so musical that

Singing he was, or floyting alle the day,

He was as freshe as is the month of May.

There is one name I must mention here, that of 'Peter le Organer,'1 perhaps connected with 'Orger' of the same date. The owner of this more modern-looking term may either have been organist at some monastery or abbey-church, or he may have played upon the portable regal, in which latter case he too might possibly have been seen here. But 'organ' was a very general term. In the old psalters it seems to have been used for nearly every species of instrument. We should scarcely speak now of ' hanging up our ' 'organs ' 'upon the willows,' but so an old version of the Psalms has it. Did we not know they were a modern invention we might have been inclinedto suspect ' le Organer' to have been but a strolling

1 This name evidently lasted till the seventeenth century, for in 1641 an 'Adam Orgener' entered C. C. Coll. Cam. (Vide Masters' history of that college.)

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (COUNTRY)

performer upon the 'hurdy-gurdy.' That, however, was an infliction mercifully spared to our forefathers. In concluding this brief survey of mediaeval music, I cannot, I think, do better than quote, as I have done partially once before, Robert de Brunne's account of the coronation of King Arthur, wherein we shall find many, if not most, of the professional characters I have been mentioning familiarly spoken of. He says

Jogelours weren there enow

That their quaintise forthe drew:

Minstrels many with divers glew (glee)

Sounds of bemes (trumps) that men blew,

Harpes, pipes, and tabours,

Fithols (fiddles), citolles (cymbals), sautreours,

Belles, chimès and synfan

Other enow and some I cannot name.

Songsters that merry sung,

Sound of glee over all rung;

Disours enow telled fables:

And some played with dice at tables.

But we are not without traces of the troubadour. The simple vocalist, a strolling professionalist, too, in many instances, remains hale and hearty in our 'Glemans; 'Gleemans,' and 'Glemmans,'not to mention our I Sangsters.' Amid such lulls as might intervene, we should hear them at the popular festivals bidding for favour with their old-fashioned stories of 'hawk and hound,' and 'myladyes bower,' set, no doubt, to airs equally d la mode. A contemporary poet tells us their song

Hath been sung at festivals

On ember eves, and holy-ales.

The recitation of these stories seems to have been a