The subject of surnames has more than once been referred to in the pages
of "N. & Q.," and it may assist those of your readers who have
investigated the question of their origin and use, to offer them the
following examples of peculiar forms of personal designation which occur
in certain of the more ancient public muniments of the city of Norwich.
It is the opinion of Camden, Du Cange, Pegge, Sharon Turner, and other
writers, that the custom of appropriating a permanent appellation to
particular families, became fully established in this country at the
period (sooner or later) of the Norman Conquest. The instances, however,
exhibited below, prove that such custom was not, at any rate,
universally prevalent at that time amongst us. And, indeed, whatever
might have been the case in reference to "the high men of the lond," it
is very certain that surnames, properly so called, were not completely
adopted by the mass of the people until the close of the fourteenth
century.
But as the intention of this Note is simply to adduce original examples
of individual designations, without inquiring into the circumstances
attending their acquisition, or pointing to the causes, obvious enough
for the most part, to which their various after-changes and
modifications are to be attributed, the subject calls for no other
general remark, except, perhaps, as to the prefixes "Le"[1] and "De,"
which, it may be noticed in passing, are, though not _constantly_, as is
commonly asserted, attached to names in records of an older date than
the time of Edward IV., when they began to fall into desuetude.
[Footnote 1: This prefix was occasionally in Cheshire, and in the
North with few exceptions, contracted into "A," as Thomas à
Becket, Thomas à Dutton, &c.]
With these introductory observations are now given, from the source
above indicated,--