Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/520

 382 ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. 9 John 1208, shows that one was duly delivered in that year (Rot. Claus. p. 101, printed ed.), and it is certain that Williaiu, or his son, continued to be the court tailor in the subsequent reign of Ileiu-y III. From the numerous orders given to him and favours bestowed on him during two reigns, he must have retired on a considerable fortune, and it would not be surprising if the blood of the tailor were now found to be flowing in patrician veins. The index to the printed Close rolls (title Scissor) refers to numerous entries relating to him. The Mews, alluded to by the jury, are supposed to have been situate without the Westgate, and they are often noticed in the Close and Pipe roUs. But there were, perhaps, still earlier Mews at Winchester ; for the '* Meiveneheia," i. e. Mews-hay, is specified among the crown demesnes in the reign of Henry I. (Liber Winton, p. 534).^ From a record which I shall cite hereafter it would appear that the land had been purchased by Henry II., and not by John, and that the jury were therefore misinformed in this respect. A large space in the document is occupied by the names of the langable tenants in each sti'eet, which are omitted in the above transcript. They are interesting only in respect of the opportunity they afford of comparing them with the earlier lists of tenants in the Liber Winton. The names of the tenants in the time of the Confessor are almost universally Saxon, and I see no ground for suspecting, with Bishop Lyttleton, that they were Normans disguised under Saxon names. Wherever the survey of Henry I. represents a change of tenancy, the new tenant has, in general, a Norman, or at least foreign, name; and the list is, upon the whole, of a mixed character. Again in the survey of 1148, the same mixed character of names pre- vails, but, I think, with a greater tendency to surnames derived from trades or other sources which no longer indicate the country or descent of the bearer. The names in the above inquest of Edwai'd I. show a great advance; and a large proportion of them, with a slight modification in the spelling, would pass for surnames of the present day. The names of the jury may be taken as fair specimens of them, and it appears to me that Messrs. Spiccr, Poore, Stockbridge, Russel, Morant, Le Cras, Fultiood, Beaublet, Strut, Ockley, Capperidge, and Palmer, are as likely to be found in a jury box in the lyth century as in the 13th. It is observable that some, even of the earliest names recoi-ded in any of the surveys, still survive in Winchester. Several in the Liber Winton might be mentioned. The Drcivs (Drogo), and some other familiar names among them were perhaps imports into the city from abroad ; but the good Saxon name of Scar/rim is of indigenous growth, and will be recollected by those members of the Institute who experienced the polite attentions of the Under-sheriff of Hants in 1845. To this notice, already too long, a few words must be added on the probable date of the above inquest. It has no date, heading, or indorse- ment, and we are left to conjecture the precise time and occasion of taking it. The commencement shows that it was taken in the reign of Edward I. and the tenor of its contents, as well as its place of deposit, seem to stamp it as the result of an inquiry on behalf of the crown. It is indeed apparent that the jurors are in the interest of the city ; but as the citizens were farmers under the crown, the interests of both were in fact nearly identical. It is well known that a general inquiry into supposed usurpations on the crown took place in the beginning of the reign of Edward I., and the •' It is possible that it should be ivad " Merewcnchaia."