Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 7.djvu/115

 so many antiquaries. We are all aware that Bray and Manning interpret it as probably signifying Pipard's estate, the first part of the word being of Norman and the second of Saxon derivation. On the other hand, there is a well-known Saxon word, "hearge " or "herge," translated in Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary by "church" or "temple." This word, according to Mr. Earle, would be justly represented, as in parallel instances, by the English "harow " or "harrow." If this view be taken, we must infer that either a heathen shrine or an early Christian place of worship existed here before the mission of St. Augustine; for no church is recorded to have stood at Peper Harow when "Domesday Book" was compiled, and after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons the word "hearge" was superseded, first by *"minster," and then by "church." It may be added that "harrow" is more naturally rendered as "a place of worship" than as "estate" in such compounds as Harrowden or Harrowgate; and, moreover, that it is difficult to attribute the latter meaning to Harrow Hill, in Sussex, or Harrow-on-the-Hill, in Middlesex. I therefore venture to prefer Mr. Earle's interpretation of Harow, but I do not as yet feel able to adopt the hint which he offers, not as a certain or probable, but as a possible, solution of the word "Peper," viz., that it may be a local corruption of the old Latin "papa," signifying a Christian pastor, long before it signified the Pope of Rome, and still preserved, with little variation, in German and Icelandic. When I find that a family of Pipards is not only mentioned, as Manning informs us, in two catalogues of those who fought at Hastings, but in seversd English records of the Middle Ages; when I find " Pipard" combined with the names of parishes in Rotherfield Pipard near Henley, and Cliffe Pypard near Wootton Bassett; when, lastly, I find it used in the same manner as a prefix in Pipard Blakedon, near Okehampton, thus named in an Inquisitio post mortem of the first year of Richard II., I am almost compelled to infer, though not to assert, that Manning is right in treating "Peper" as a family name. Other local names in the immediate