Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

frequent as to need no example.' The 'maund' was similar in character, but made of more pliant bands, probably of rushes, for we find it in common use by our early fishermen. Our 'Maunders' and 'Manders' are, I think, to be set here, therefore, either as manufacturers or as wayside beggars, who bore them as the receptacles of the doles they got. Another sup-position is that they were beggars who acquired the sobriquet because they maundered out their petition for alms. I cannot but think the former is the more likely derivation, our Maundy Thursday itself having got its name from the practice of doling out the gifts for the poor from the basket then so named.

But we have not even yet completed our list of surnames derivable from manufactures of this class. Our 'Coffers' represent seemingly the same word in a twofold capacity. We find occasional records where the cofferer was undoubtedly an official servant, .a treasurer, one who carried the money of his lord in his journeys up and down.2More often, however, he was a tradesman, a maker or dealer in coffers or

1 Mr. Way, in his valuable series of notes to the PromptoriumParvulorum, quotes a later Wicklyffite version, in which the ' basket of bulrushes' in which Moses was placed is termed ' a leep of segg' (sedge). An old list of words which he also quotes has 'a lepe maker, cophinarius.' (Cath. Ang.) I mention this latter especially, as I have not been able so far to light upon any instance of the sobriquet.I have no hesitation in saying, however, that if 'Leaper' and 'Leaf' 'man' be not manufacturers, they have, at any rate, as fish-sellers, originated from the same root. 'And thei eeten and weren fulfilled, and thei taken up that that lefte of relifs sevene leepis.' (Matt. viii. 8. Wicklyffe.)

2 Thus in the Trevelyan papers (Cam. Soc.) we frequently come across such a record as the following: ' Item, to Edmund Peckham, coferer of the Kinge's House for th'expenses and charges, etc.'

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (TOWN).

coffins, the two words being once used altogether indiscriminately.' Many of my readers who are familiar with Greek will recognise the more literal translation and meaning of the word in Wicklyffe's rendering of Mark vi. 43. 'And they token the relyves of broken mete, twelve coffyns full.' Lacking any other name to represent the undertaker's business, I doubt not our early 'William le Cofferers' and'Godfrey le Coffrers' were quite able and willing to furnish forth this portion of the funeral outfit. These early surnames, then, must be set beside our already explained 'Arkwrights,' while, as sign-names, our 'Coffins' and 'Coffers' (supposing the latter not to be a curter form of 'Coffrer') will be as readily recognisable.

While, however, wood, clay, and the various cheaper metals were thus brought into requisition to provide the utensils of the household and the means of carriage, we must not forget that leather, too, had its uses in these respects. It is this lets us into the secret of the numerosity of our 'Butlers.' Important as undoubtedly was the 'Boteler' to the feudal residence, that fact alone would scarcely account for the large number of ' le Botillers' or 'le Botelers' we find in every considerable roll. The fact is, the name was both official and occupative. Of this there can be no doubt. In the York Pageant of 1415 we find walking in procession together with the 'Pouchmakers' the 'Botillers' and the 'Cap-makers,' all obviously engaged in the leather manufacture. The phrase 'like finding a needle in a bottle of hay' still preserves

1 The list of tradesmen in Cock Lorelle's Bote includes —

'Pype-makers, wode-mongers, and orgyn-makers,
Coferers, carde-makers, and carvers.'