218 



Bishops of Old Sarum. 



to a generation of men intimately acquainted with public affairs, who 

 acquired habits of business in the exchequer. But whilst in the case 

 of Roger " Pauper," the presumed son of Bishop Roger, the name 

 was evidently given in consequence of the impoverished condition to 

 which he was reduced by the confiscation of his father's and his own 

 estates, the reason is different in the case before us. The munificence 

 of both brothers, especially of the younger, added to the express 

 statement by William de Wanda concerning the elder, that he was 

 " dives et assiduus," seem to shew its inaccuracy. Indeed there are 

 incidental notices met with, which seem to imply that the brothers 

 were not only wealthy, but of gentle if not of noble birth. 



The conjecture therefore is hazarded that the name of Poore, like 

 that of "Le Poer" and "Poure'' or "Power" so common in Ireland, 

 originated in the Norman-French equivalent for the Latin word Puer, 

 which was used in much the same sense as the Anglo-Saxon Cild. 

 Both these terms were employed in the middle ages to denote the sons 

 of nobles not yet in possession of their paternal estates. Thus "Puer 

 Anglicus" was an old designation of the Prince of Wales, as the heir to 

 the crown. Brixi, in like manner, in Domesday is called cild; 1 as is 

 also Wulf noth, the father of the great Earl Godwin, under the year 

 1009 in the Saxon Chronicle, being in other documents styled the 

 " Thane," or " Minister," of Sussex. 2 As confirmatory of the truth 

 or feasibility of this conjecture, it may be mentioned that the 

 Shropshire " Childs," still existent, credibly claim descent from a 

 family which was at one time called " Le Poer," and at another time 

 " Child." 3 The fact moreover is of some little interest, and may 

 go for what it is worth, that at no very great distance from Tarrant, 



1 Domesday, I., 6, 6 b, 35, II., 48. See also Freeman's Norman Conquest, v. 29. 



2 " On $ys ylcan timan Brihtric Eadrices broker ealdormannes forwecgde 

 Wulfno'S cild ^>one SuSsexiscan Godwines feeder Eorles to J^am cinge." [At 

 this time Brihtric the alderman, Eadrics' brother, accused Wulfnoth child, the 

 South Saxon, Earl Godwin's father, to the King.] See also Palgrave's Anglo- 

 Saxons, p. 294, and Hampson's Origines Patriciae, p. 327. 



3 See Eyton's Shropshire, index, sub voce " Child." Not only have we the 

 name Poore apparently from Puer, but its diminutive JPuerellus would seem 

 to have been invented by the Normans, and transmitted as the family name of 

 Peverel through successive generations. 



