ON ERRATA RECEPTA. 22/ 



is connected with theilen, to deal out. — Pewter is the Old G-erman 

 or Teutonic peauter, white brass. Bourse, being now almost Eng- 

 lish, may be admitted into our list. The term is thus accounted for. 

 The meeting-place for merchants at Bruges in the 14th century hap- 

 pening to be in a house once inhabited by the noble family of van 

 den Beurse, whose armorial cognizance of three purses was sculp- 

 tured over the door, the building became known as the Beurse, and 

 supplied a name for buildings similarly used elsewhere. Bourse 

 itself is, of course, a descendant of the Late Latin hxirsa, a leather- 

 purse. ("We may have occasion to detail hereafter other instances 

 of buildings accidentally entailing their names ; as, for example, the 

 old Parisian convents of the Jacobins, Ecuillants, and Cordeliers.) 



6. Among military terms, we have knapsack, properly ^c^wcjjjj- 

 sack, a pouch for carrying schnapps, provisions on the march. Again, 

 havresack is hafersack, a bag for hafen, oats ; a word recalling the 

 time when a meal had a literal significance. — Bivouac also is German. 

 It is altered from heiwacht, expressive of the extra-amount of vigi- 

 lance necessary to be maintained by an army suddenly encamping 

 without defences. — The well-known French term auberge, and Ita- 

 lian albergo, a way-side inn, are modifications of the Old High Ger- 

 man heriberga, quarters for an army when marching through a pro- 

 vince. Our terms harbour and arbour have properly the same signi- 

 fication. But they have come to us through the Anglo-Saxon here- 

 heorga. Harbinger is a person sent forward to see that quarters are 

 in readiness for an approaching military force. The numerous Cold- 

 harhours, to be met with in various counties of England, are said to 

 have been farms, outposts, or garrisons of Eoman Colonies. They 

 are generally found near a Eoman road or settlement. If the sug- 

 gestion is correct, Cold, in these words, is a corruption of Col, i.e. 

 Colonia. 



A marshal was originally the groom in charge of the King's horses. 

 (Old High German marah, horse, and scale, servant.) This person 

 was next required to see to the ordering of companies of horse on 

 the field of battle and elsewhere, under the comes stabuli, the count 

 of the stable, the Grand Constable. At last the term is applied to 

 the highest rank in the army. — In French, a farrier is still a mare- 

 chal. {Seneschal, not unknown in our poetry, is O.H.G-. sini, old, 

 tcalc, as above.) 



Hauberk and its diminutive habergeon are given in the English 



