Note 195 — Chapter III · SURNAMES OF OFFICE.

A strange and yet most natural change gradually crept over this word. There can be no doubt that the original ‘potager,’ or ‘potinger,’ had his place in the baronial household as the superintendent of the mess-making department. From his knowledge of herbs thus acquired he evidently came to be looked upon in a medicinal capacity. Thus the term came to be used synonymously with ‘apothecary.’ In the Archæologia (vol. xxii) we find it recorded that one of the horses connected with the household of James V. of Scotland was called ‘le Pottinger’—‘uno equo pharmacopile, vulgo le Pottinger.’ In an old university record, dated 1439, I find, too, a certain ‘Ralph Prestbury’ mentioned as sworn to keep the peace towards ‘Thomam Halle, potygare, alias chirurgicum.’ (Mun. Acad. Oxon., p. 523.) Probably, however, it was the lowly herbalist, rather than the professional druggist, who acquired the sobriquet.