330 The Ancient Styles and Designations of Persons. 
‘Tn a curious treatise quoted by Todd, entitled ‘ A Decacordon of Ten Quod- 
libetical questions concerning Religion and State, &c.,’ newly imprinted 1602, 
we have the following magniloquent explanation of the matter: ; 
‘“‘ By the laws armorial civil and of arms, a Priest in his place in civil con- 
versation is always before any Esquire as being a Knight's fellow by his Holy 
orders, and the third of the three Sirs, which only were in request of old (no 
Baron, Viscount, Earl, nor Marquis being then in use), to wit, Sir King, Sir 
Knight, and Sir Priest: the word Dominus, in Latin, being a noun substantive 
common to them all—Dominus meus Rex, Dominus meus Joab, Dominus 
Sacerdos, and afterwards when honours began to take their subordination, one 
under another, and titles of princely dignity to be hereditary to succeeding 
posterity, which happened upon the fall of the Roman empire, then Dominus 
was in Latin applied to all noble and generous hearts, even from the King to the 
meanest Priest or temporal person of gentle blood, coat-armour perfect, and 
ancestry: but Sir in England was restrained to these four, Si Knight, Sir 
Priest, Str Graduate, and in common speech Sv Esquire ; so as always since 
distinction of titles were, Sir Priest was ever the second. 
‘Fuller in his Church History gives us a more homely version of the title. After 
saying that anciently there were in England more Sirs than Knights, he adds, 
‘Such Priests as bore the additional Sir before their Christian name, were men not 
graduated in the university, but being in orders though not in degrees, whilst 
others entitled Masters had commenced in the Arts.’ 
In a note in Smith’s Antiquities of Westminster, Mr. John Sidney Hawkins 
gives us the following explanation of the passage in Fuller :— 
“Tt was probably only a translation of the Latin Dominus, which in strict- 
ness means, when applied to persons under the degree of Knighthood, nothing 
more than master, or as it is now written, Mr. In the university persons would 
rank according to their academical degrees only, and there was consequently no 
danger of confusion between baronets and knights and those of the clergy ; but 
to preserve the distinction which Fuller points out, it seems to have been thought 
necessary to translate Dominus in this case by the appellative Sir; for had 
Magister been used instead of Dominus, or had Dominus been rendered Master, 
non-graduates to whom it had been applied would have been mistaken for 
magistri artium, masters of arts.” 
In the year 1841, I was told by the Rev. William Cooke, the 
Rector of Bromyard, that “Sir” prefixed to the name of a clergy- 
man denoted that he was a Bachelor of Arts. He stated that in 
the act books of the College of Vici:2s at Hereford Cathedral, a 
corporate body distinct from the Dean and Chapter, incorporated 
by Richard the Second in the year 1396, every Vicar who was a 
Master of Arts was styled “Mr,” and every Vicar who was a 
Bachelor of Arts had “ Sir” prefixed to his Christian and surname ; 
and that when either of those who had been styled “Sir” after- 
wards obtained his degree of Master of Arts, his style was altered 
to “ Mr.” 
