Note 391 — Chapter V · SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION. (TOWN).

We have a similar curtailment in our ‘Prentices’ or ‘Prentis’s’ (relics of ‘William le Prentiz’ or ‘Nicholas Apprenticius’) a name of the most familiar import at the time of which we are speaking. Chaucer begins his ‘Cook’s Tale’ by saying—

‘A prentis whilom dwelt in our citee,

And of a craft of vitaillers was he.’

In the early days of national commerce and industry, when the jealousy of foreign craftsmen was at its height, the prentice boys showed themselves on various occasions a formidable body, capable of arousing riots and tumults of the most serious character.