Chapter I

) was also used as a genitive, as in Bourg-le-roi, Bourg-la-rein, corresponding to our Kingsbury and Queensborough. We have a genitive also in Flowerdew, found in French as Flourdieu. Lower, in his Patronymics Britannica (1860), the first attempt at a dictionary of English surnames, conjectures Fauntleroy to be from an ancient French war-cry Défendez le roi! for "in course of time, the meaning of the name being forgotten, the de would be dropped, and the remaining syllables would easily glide into Fauntleroy." [Footnote: I have quoted this "etymology" because it is too funny to be lost; but a good deal of useful information can be found in Lower, especially with regard to the habitat of well-known names.]

ECCLESIASTICAL NAMES

Names of ecclesiastics must usually be nicknames, because medieval churchmen were not entitled to have descendants. This appears clearly in such an entry as "Bishop the crossbowman," or "Johannes Monacus et uxor ejus Emma," living in Kent in the twelfth century. But these names are so numerous that I have put them with the Canterbury Pilgrims (ch. xvii.). Three of them may be mentioned here in connection with a small group of occupative surnames of puzzling form. We have noticed (