Note 201 — Chapter III · SURNAMES OF OFFICE.

A manciple was an achatour for a more public institution, such as an Inn of Court or College. It is quite possible that our ‘Mansels’ and ‘Maunsels’ are thus derived, relics as they undoubtedly are of the ‘le Maunsels’ or ‘le Mansells’ of this period. The corruption colloquially of ‘manciple’ into ‘maunsell’ would be a perfectly natural one. An instance of the purer form is found in the name of ‘Thomas Mancipill,’ met with in Munimenta Academica (Oxon.) p. 525, under the date 1441. That this was a common term at that university we may prove from an indenture found in the same book, dated 1459, in which are mentioned ‘catours, manciples, spencers, cokes, lavenders, &c.’ (P. 346.) It may be interesting to some to state that to this day this is the term for the chief cook in several of the colleges.