Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

Curriers, cordwayners, and cobelers,

Gyrdelers, forborers, and webbers.

Such entries as 'Elyas le Webbe,' or 'Clarice le Webbere,' or 'John le Webestre,' are of common occurrence in our mediaeval and still earlier records. But the processes are anything but at an end. The cloth must be dyed and fulled. Of the first our

Listers,' once enrolled as 'Hugh le Litster' or Henry le Littester,'1 speak, and 'Dyer' or 'Dister,' still harder of recognition in such a guise as 'Geoffrey le Deghere' or 'Robert le Dighestere,' forms found at the period we are writing about. It was John Littester, a dyer, who in 1381 headed the rebellion in Norwich. Here the surname was evidently taken from the occupation followed. Halliwell gives the obsolete verb I to lit' or dye, and quotes an old manuscript in which the following sentence occurs: 'We use na clathis that are littede of dyverse coloures.'Such names as I Gilbert le Teinturer,' or l Richard le Teynterer,' or 'Philip le Tentier,' which I have come across in three separate records, represent the old French title for the same occupation, but I believe they have failed to come down to us — at least I have not met with any after instance. The old English forms of tincture' and 'tint' are generally found to be 'teinture' and teint.' The teinturer is not without relics. We still speak when harassed of º being on the stretch,' or when in a state of suspense of 'being upon tenter-hooks,' both of which proverbial expressions

1 A chantry to the church of All Saints, York, was erected in the fifteenth century by Adam del Bank, Littester.' (Nist. and that. Of York, vol. ii. P. 269.) The Promp. Par. has 'Lystare, or Lytaster of cloth dyynge — Tinctor.'

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (TOWN).

must have arisen in the common converse of cloth-workers. The tenter itself was the stretcher upon which the cloth was laid while in the dyer's hands. On account of various deceits that had become notorious in the craft, such, for instance, as the over-stretching of the material, a law was passed in the first year of Richard III. that ' tentering' or ' teyntering ' should only be done in an open place, and for this purpose public tenters were to be set up. ('Stat. Realm,'Rich. III.) We find many references to this important instrument in old testaments. Thus an inventory of goods, dated 1562, belonging to a man resident in the parish of Kendall, speaks of 'Tenture posts and woodde, 6d. — ii tentures 20s.' (Richmond-shire Wills,' p. 156.) The dyes themselves used in the process of colouring are not without existing memorials. In the York Pageant, already referred to, we find, walking in procession with the woolpackers, the 'Wadmen,' that is, the sellers of woad, unless indeed, they were the dyers themselves. The more common spelling was 1 wode,' and when not local, 'Thomas le Wodere ' or 'Alan le Wodeman,' with their modern 'Wooder' and 'Woodman,' will be found, I doubt not, to be the representative of this calling. 'John Maderman;' and'Lawrence Maderer' remind us of the more reddish and popular hues. Great quantities of this were yearly imported from Holland, especially Middleburgh. The old' Libel on English Policy' speaks of

The marchaundy of Braban and Selande,

as being

The madre and woode (woad) that dyers take ou hande.