s name
was given to the stealthy animal formerly called the bawson (Chapter
I.), brock or gray (Chapter XXIII). That Badger is a nickname taken
from the animal is chronologically improbable, as the word is first
recorded in 1523 (New English Dictionary).

To the above names may be added Cremer, Cramer, a huckster with a
stall in the market, but this surname is sometimes of modern
introduction, from its German cognate Kraemer, now generally used for a
grocer. Packman, Pakeman, and Paxman belong more probably to the
font-name Pack (Chapter IX), which also appears in Paxon, either
Pack's son, or for the local Paxton.

The name Hawker does not belong to this group. Nowadays a hawker is a
pedlar, and it has been assumed, without sufficient evidence, that the
word is of the same origin as huckster. The Mid. Eng. le haueker or
haukere (1273) is quite plainly connected with hawk, and the name may
have been applied either to a Falconer, Faulkner, or to a dealer in
hawks. As we know that itinerant vendors of hawks travelled from
castle to castle, it is quite possible that our modern hawker is an
extended use of the same name.

Nor is the name Coster to be referred to costermonger, originally a
dealer in costards, i.e. apples. It is sometimes for Mid. Eng.
costard (cf. such names as Cherry and Plumb), but may also represent
Port. da Costa and Ger. Koester, both of which are found in early
lists of Protestant refugees.

Jagger was a north-country name for a man who worked draught-horses
for hire. Mr. Hardy's novel Under the Greenwood Tree opens with "the
Tranter's party." A carrier is still a "tranter" in Wessex. In
Medieval Latin he was called travetarius, a word apparently connected
with Lat. transvehere, to transport.

CHAPTER XX. OFFICIAL AND DOMESTIC

"Big fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em
Little fleas have smaller fleas,
And so ad infinitum."

Anon.

It is a well-known fact that official nomenclature largely reflects
the simple housekeeping of early times, and that many titles, now of
great dignity, were originally associated with rather lowly duties.
We have seen an example in Stewart. Another is Chamberlain. Hence
surnames drawn from this class are susceptible of very varied
interpretation. A Chancellor was originally a man in charge of a
chancel, or grating, Lat. cancelli. In Mid. English it is usually
glossed scriba, while it is now limited to very high judicial or
po