Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/838

812 the patten, a sort of clog much worn during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. Taylor finds Bark and Barker in the old writs of that period, and suggests that the occupation of the first owners of these names was to provide the tanners with the material for converting the hides into leather. This may or may not be the case, but it is reasonably certain, according to the best authorities, that our Butlers were once the Botelers, bottles in that day being frequently made of leather, and the name being applied first to him who made the bottles and, after a time, to him who looked after them and their contents.

Rope-making is not distantly related to the leather trade, and of the manufacture of ropes relics are still seen in Roper, Corder, Stringer, and Twyner.

One of the most curious pages of philological history is that written by Bardsley in recounting the proper names which grew out of the wool trade. For ages wool was the staple of England, and thousands of busy operatives were employed in the various processes necessary before the wool could be transferred from the back of the sheep to the back of the man; before the raw product could be converted into the finished manufacture. At every step, proper names indicative of the calling of those who bore them sprang up, so that, were we ignorant of the fact that the Saxons dealt in wool and made cloth, we might draw perfectly correct and legitimate conclusions as to the business, its extent and various departments, from the family names still surviving. To follow Bardsley in this quaint pilgrimage through the woolen-factories of Old England: the sheep were cared for by the Shepherd or Sheepherd, a name which with variations of spelling is extremely common. Shearing was the first operation requiring either delicacy or skill, and Shearer, Shearman, Shurman, and similar names bespeak their own ancestry. The wool was then placed in bags, made by the Sackers or Canvassers, and was ready for the merchant, an individual often known as Stapler, Wool, Wooler, Woolman, or Woolsey, or in French as Lanier or Lanyer. He consigned it to the care of persons who transported it from place to place on the backs of pack-horses or in vehicles, and were thus known as the Packers, the Carters, or the Carriers. The wool was then handed over to the Carders and Combers, or Kempers and Kempsters, as they were variously called, and passed from their hands to those of the Spinners, who used implements made by the Spindlers and Slayers, afterward going on to the Weavers, Weevers, Webbs, Webbers, or feminine Websters. The cloth was next "teased" to bring out the nap, a process done by the Teasers, Tosers, Tousers, Teazelers, or Taylors, when it was finished and ready for the Dyer, Litter, or Lister, or the Norman Taintor or Taintur. Woad, the common dye-stuff, was provided