edieval bruiser. There is also the possibility, considering the
brutality of many old nicknames, that the bearer of the name had been
judicially deprived of his right hand, a very common punishment,
especially for striking a feudal superior. Thus Renaut de Montauban,
finding that his unknown opponent is Charlemagne, exclaims--

"J'ai forfait le poing destre dont je l'ai adese (struck)."

We have some nicknames describing gait, e.g. Ambler and Shaylor--

"I shayle, as a man or horse dothe that gothe croked with his leggs,
je vas eschays" (Palsgrave)--

and perhaps sometimes Trotter. If George Eliot had been a student of
surnames she would hardly have named a heroine Nancy Lammiter, i.e.
cripple--

"Though ye may think him a lamiter, yet, grippie for grippie, he'll
make the bluid spin frae under your nails" (Black Dwarf, ch. xvii.).

Pettigrew and Pettifer are of French origin, pied de grue (crane) and
pied de fer. The former is the origin of the word pedigree, from a
sign used in drawing genealogical trees. The Buckinghamshire name
Puddifoot or Puddephatt (Podefat, 1273) and the aristocratic
Pauncefote are unsolved. The former may be a corruption of Pettifer,
which occurs commonly, along with the intermediate Puddifer, in the
same county. But the English Dialect Dictionary gives as an obsolete
Northants word the adjective puddy, stumpy, pudgy, applied especially
to hands, fingers, etc., and Pudito (puddy toe) occurs as a surname in
the Hundred Rolls. As for Pauncefote, I believe it simply means what
it appears to, viz. "belly-foot," a curious formation, though not
without parallels, among obsolete rustic nicknames. If these two
conjectures are correct, both Puddifoot and Pauncefote may be almost
literal equivalents of the Greek OEdipus, i.e. "swell-foot."

In other languages as well as English we find money nicknames. It is
easy to understand how some of these come into existence, e.g. that
Pierce. Pennilesse was the opposite of Thomas Thousandpound, whose
name occurs c. 1300. With the latter we may compare Fr. Centlivre,
the name of an English lady dramatist of the eighteenth century.
Moneypenny is found in 1273 as Manipeni, and a Londoner named Manypeny
died in 1348. The Money- is partly north country, partly imitative.

Money itself is usually occupative or local (Chapter XVII), and
Shilling is the Anglo-Saxon name Scilling. The oldest and commonest
of such nicknames is the simple Penny, with whi