Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/245

 ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. 1 S-'J ill charge subsequently to the Dissolution, persons are described by two names, the first being very frequently taken from names of places, whilst the alias appears to be of the ordinary class of English surnames. To this usage Camden adverts, observing that, besides the popes, " other religious men also when they entered into some Orders, changed their names in times past, following therein (as they report) the Apostle, that changed his name from Saul to Paul, after he entered into the ministery." ^ Mr. Markland, in his Remarks on Surnames, cites the assertion of llolinshed (27 lien. VI.), that it was a fashion " from a learned s|)iritnall man, to take awaie the fathers' surname (were it never so worshipful or ancient) and give him for it the name of the town he was born in." ^ Martene, in his Observations upon Ancient Monastic Rites, has shown that novices, when they took the monastic habit, were accustomed to change the names by which they previously had been known ; and he cites instances, showing the antiquity of this usage, which doubtless was signiticant that they had thus become dead to the world, as also civiliter mortui, and were regene- rated, so to speak, to a new and spiritual life.* Charpenticr, also, in his additions to Ducange, (under Xomina Mutari) has the following observa- tion : — " Nomen etiam mutabant Monaclii : quod in aliquot Ordinibus Ecclesiasticis etiam hodie in usu est." As regards also the change of name at the ordination of bishops, Martene states that such was the ancient custom, of which Bede gives an instance ('* Hist. Ang." lib. 5, c. 12) where he records that St. ^Villibrord, ordained Bishop of the Prisons, A.D. GOG, received from the Pope the name of Clement. Thus also, in the eleventh centurj^, St. Astricus, when raised to the dignity of an arch- bishop in Hungary, took the name of Anastasius ; and Jazomir, when Bishop of Bremen, that of Gebchard. The same usage obtained likewise in the Greek church ; ecclesiastics who were advanced to the c])iscopate usually assuming thenceforth the names of persons eminent of old for their piety and holy life.*" It is now the custom in all religious orders, both of men and women, that individuals making the profession, that is, taking the last vows, should change the entire name. Alban Butler remarks that persons generally take a new name " when they enter a religious state, partly to express their obligation of becoming new men, and partly to put themselves under the special patronage of certain saints, whose examples they propose to themselves for their models." (" Lives of Saints," note, June 29.) The Fasti of English Bishopricks, and the lists of heads of monasteries, would supply a multitude of examples, showing the change of the patro- nymic for a name derived from the place of birth. There are, however, another class of surnames thus assumed, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, being those of men eminent of old for their piety or their learning, saints, doctors of the church, and even angels. To this peculiar fashion, which docs not appear hitherto to have been sufficiently noticed, it was no doubt owing that John Knollys, Prior of Cokesford, Norfolk, in 14G3, appears with the alias of Clement, and other examples might be cited, in the fifteenth century. Anthony Kitchin, the last abbot of Eynesham, assumed the more euphonous appellative of Dunstan. The bond now under consideration appears to present the most remarkable illustration of this usage, hitherto noticed. Being dated so short a time previously to ^ Camden's Rcm.aincs, p. 1 40, edit. Hi;!?. '* Arrlucolnpia, vol. xviii. p. lOit. •■' Miirtene, do Aiituiu. Ecc. Kit. lib. i. c. i. art. x. and lib. v. c. iii.
 * Ibid. lib. i. c. viii. int. x.