Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/53

 us. xii. JULY IT, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

Bestiano, Bishop of Sovana, was present at the Council of Rome in 826.

The Venerable Bede mentions a priest named Bete (in the Latin version, Betti) in 653. The Saxon Bete was possibly derived from betan, to make better, to improve, of which bette is the past tense. Bosworth gives bette as " corrected." Searle's ' Ono- masticon Anglo -Saxonicum ' states that

" an attempt was made by the Anglo-Saxons to compensate in some small way for the lack of* surnames by giving children names in which the themes of the fathers' names were found." Amongst these themes he instances " bet/' Amongst the monothematic names with the final consonant doubled, he mentions Bettes. Searle goes on to state that " a very great number of these may be deduced from the place-names in the boundaries of estates with which the Land Charters are concerned." I have not found any in connexion with the name Betts. Betsham, near Gravesend, and Bettes- hanger, near Deal (ham being home, and hanger, a wood on the side of a hill), evi- dently are called after persons, and not the persons from the places. Betteshanger is mentioned in an Inquisition 10 Ed. III. as a fee held by Alice Tancrey, where it is called " Betlesangre by Sandewyc," and it may be that the derivation is from another source. There is also a Betsworth in Surrey. The Welsh " Bettws " has nothing to do with Betts. "Bettws" in Cymric means "land between a river and a hill." John Filius Beti and Robert Betus, mentioned in the Hundred Rolls under Cambridge, are, of course, merely Latinized forms of the name in England.

In Domesday Book, under Hertford, Bettice, a man of Wulfwine, one of Earl Harold's thegns, is mentioned as of East- wick ; and in 1607 there is recorded in the Registers of that parish a marriage of Francis Bett with Alice Bettice, a curious conjunction of names probably derived from the same root, and one of which retained its original form for over 500 years.

A suggestion has been made that the name arose from one who was Elizabeth's, Betty's, or Bet's man ; but I think this unlikely, as the name is almost always written without " man." There is, how- ever, among the Stonor letters (1477-87) OIK- which refers to a matter between " Sir \ViIliam Stonor and his first wife, Elizabeth, and his stepson, Thomas Bettson of Calais." Thomas may have been called "Bettson" from being son of Elizabeth. In the Marriage Registers of Lincolnshire from

1560 to 1807 there are only six mentions of Betts or Bet, while Bettesons are- numerous. It is possible, therefore, that in. this county (although it adjoins Norfolk, where it remains Betts) the name may have become Betteson.

It is spelt in many ways : Bet, Bete, Bets, Betes, Bettes, and even Beats, Beatts* Beattis, Bettice, Betice, Betty, Bettys, Betys r Bettis, and Betts ; but in olden times it was- not unusual for names to be spelt in different ways even in the same document, and no- importance need be attached to such varia- tions. Beats and Beattis possibly give some- countenance to the derivation mentioned by Bailey and others.

The ' Oxford English Dictionary ' gives " bette " as the obsolete past tense and participle of " beat," under which word " bette " is stated to be a form in use from, the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.. I find that the name usually Was spelt with- out the s until the beginning of the sixteenth, century, when the s became general. The- second e seems to have dropped out oi Bettes during that century, and is found rarely after 1600.

Amongst the definitions of "bettes' r stated by Cotgrave are those of

" tippling, sipping, boozing, quaffing, and hence- Enlrer en be.ttes, to grow merry or mellow in drinking, or to fall a chattering, as gossips do when they have drunk hard together."

I mention without comment the sugges- tions that Anketyn de Betevile (Grafton has Hawkin Betuell) and William Betayne or Betoyne, Sheriffs of London in 1283 and 1298 respectively, and the towns of Bethune and Betz in Northern France, may have derived their name from, " Bette."

Grimm's ' Deutsches Worterbuch " has

" bett, bette Mid-High German ' bette '

Eng. ' bed.' ' Miiller's ' Mittelhoch-

deutsches Warterbuch ' gives many instances of compound words formed from the Gothic root " badi," a bed, through the Old High German "betti"; and Forstemann's ' Alt- deutsches Namenbuch ' under " bessa " has " betlind, betlindis, betselin, bett-s (badu)."

Lexer's ' Mittelhochdeutsches Hand- v orterbuch ' under " betz " refers to- " pacem," under which it gives "pace,' r " paece," " der Friedenskuss, bei der Messe '* (the Kiss of Peace at Mass), and cites amongst other authorities Schmeller's ' Bayerisches Worterbuch,' " bats," and ' Berthold von Regensburg,' von F. Pfeiffer (502,21), "betz." ARTHUR BETTS.

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