Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

salsariis.' The learned editor of this book, commenting upon this passage, says, ' "scutella' 'is a word of somewhat extensive application to dishes or platters, saucers or salvers, and it is retained in our present English "scuttle."' I doubt not with him that while ' scutum,' a shield, is the root, the term is here in-tended to refer to the large flat spoons or plates used for the sauce-dishes. It is from his resemblance to these that some wide-mouthed country bumpkin is set down in the Hundred Rolls as 'Arnold Scutelmuth,' while the occupation of making them finds its memorial in the Rolls of Parliament in such a sobriquet as 'James le Scutelaire.' Speaking, how-ever, of the dining table, we may here mention the cutler. Of such a name as ' Henry Knyfesmythe'I have already had occasion to hint. The cutler enjoyed, or perhaps I ought to say was the victim of, a very uncertain orthography in mediaeval times, and some ofthe forms found are extremely curious. I may cite such personages as 'Richard le Cutyler,' 'John le Cotiler,' 'Peter le Cotyler,' 'Henry le Coteler,'or 'Solomon le Cotiller' as representative of those which were then most in vogue. All are now content, it wouldseem, to be absorbed in the simple' Cutler.'Strange to say, I cannot find a single ancestor of our familiar 'Spooner.' A mediaeval rhymester, however, speaks ofsponers, turners, and hatters.' With many of these names I have just mentioned the ironmonger would have much to do. The uncertain form of the term used for this material gave rise to three familiar words, those of ' iron,' 'ise,' or ' ire.' Trevisa speaks of England as being plenteous in ' veynes of metayls, of

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (TOWN).

bras, of yre, of Ieed, of tyn, of selver.'1Thus while 'Henry le Ironmonger' dealt, as no one of my readers will doubt, in vessels and utensils of the material his name suggests, it is not to be supposed that 'Geoffrey le Iremonger' or 'William le Irremongere' was but a cant nickname for one of splenetic temperament; or that in 'Isabel le Isemonger' or 'Agnes la Ismongere' we have traces of any disposition for those frozen creams which in the hot summer time we of the nineteenth century are so glad to seek on the confectioner's counter. All alike were hardware manufacturers. The present forms are 'Iremonger,' 'Irmonger,' and Ironmonger.'

It may seem strange that wood should hold such a conspicuous position in work of a culinary nature, but it is with good reason. We must remember all our ornamental fictile vessels were unknown to our forefathers. It was not till the close of the sixteenth century they came into any settled use. It is to this circumstance we must doubtless refer the extraordinaryprevalence of our 'Turners.' Not the least important articles of their workmanship would be the vessels they turned off from the lathe. That Jack-of-all-trades, the Miller of Trumpington, could, according to Chaucer, amongst his many other achievements, 'turn cuppes.'2When wood, however, was not used, the utensils were of the roughest character — mugs, jars, and such like vessels, formed of the common

1 Thus the author of Cocke Lorelle's Bote refers to--

'Yermongers, pybakers, and waferers,

Fruyters, chesemongers, and mynstrelles.'

"Theredwelled also turners of beads, and they were paternoster-makers ' (Stow, iii. 174). The term was evidently very general.