10 s. x. DEC. 12, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
471
ERNISIUS: A PROPER NAME.
(10 S. x. 388.)
As MB. RALPH NEVILL mentions my name, I will give him what information I can on the matter in question. I was a few days ago consulting at the Public Record Office the Pipe Roll for 26 Hen. II. (1179-80), and on rotulet 10, membrane 2, occurs the name " Herueus Clericus," and on the dorse of the same rotulet the name " Ernisus Cut." There is no possible doubt about the reading of either name. The writing of the Pipe Rolls of that period is so distinct that there is no confusion between n and u. " Herueus " is no doubt the Latin form of the English name Hervey or Harvey. I should have expected to find " Heruicus," to correspond with " Henricus " for Henry, " Almaricus " or " Amaricus " for Emery, "Arnica" for Amy, and similar names. I believe both " Heruicus " and " Herui- cius " exist, but I cannot at the moment quote an instance of either.
As to the other name, it has usually been printed " Ernisius " ; but in the place mentioned above, and elsewhere in the Pipe Rolls of Henry II., when written in full, it is distinctly " Ernisus." The French form " Erneis " will be found in Domesday Book, but I know of no English equivalent, and cannot remember meeting with any such English name in medieval documents. Ernest must be a more modern importation from Germany.
After the twelfth century, the spelling
- Ernisius " is sometimes used. An instance
will be found in the Fine Roll 41 Hen. III. membrane 1 alias 14 (1256-7). This is printed in ' Excerpta e Rotulis Finium,' vol. ii. p. 263.
I think this will be sufficient to convince MB. NEVILL that, though the two names may in any particular instance be confused, that both names have a distinct existence. C. TBICE MABTHST.
I believe MB. RALPH NEVILL will find that " Erneis," " Ernes," " Ernegis," or " Her- neis " was, though rare, a very real Christian name ; that " Herveius " is never found spelt with an s as " Hervesius " ; and that " Ernisius " was the name of the Nevill he mentions. I also do not think it has anything to do with the German Ernest, now so common, but utterly unknown in England until quite modern times.
" Ernes " never found spelt with a t,
which should never be added died quite
out by the end of the thirteenth century,
and was forgotten. Could it possibly mean
Eagle-eyes, or be derived from " Harnois,"
Old French for armour, and the origin of
" harness " (see Prof. Skeat's ' Etymological
Diet.'), perhaps originally the iron nasal
guard only, if the single n represents two ?
I know of only one instance of this name
being handed down to the present day,
as will be shown.
Radulf Taisson, lord of the Pays de Cinglais in Normandy, founded, with the aid of his brother " Erneis," the abbey of St. Stephen at Fontenay-le-Marmion about 1055. This is the first I have met with (' Gallia Christiana,' xi. 412, and ' Instr.' col. 334). Robert fitz Erneis, son of the above-named, was killed at the battle of Hastings, and was the first of six Roberts " Fitzherneis." Robert II., who married Gersendis Marmion, and was a donor to Castleacre Priory, has recorded in a charter these facts :
" My father was killed in England, and Radulf fitz Erneis, my uncle, by command of King William, took the body to Fontenay ; and the body of Erneis, my grandfather, dead before (him), I removed from the churchyard of St. Martin to the graveyard of Fontenay, and interred it next to that of my father." Ib.
These interesting facts eluded the research of Prof. Freeman when writing his great ' History of the Norman Conquest.'
Robert Fitzherneis V. gave the tithes of three places in Lincolnshire to Fontenay, and the sixth confirmed specifically the gifts' of all his ancestors to the abbey (ib.).
Robertus filius Ernisii held two knights' fees of the Bishop of Lincoln in 1166 (' Liber Niger,' 261) ; and it was a daughter of his who was widow of Simon de Grieve quer, recently dead 1186.
In the reign of Henry II. there seem to have been five brothers Fitzherneis, viz., Robert, William, Eudo, Oliver, and Philip. Robert and Eudo certainly were brothers. The first married Rohese de Courcy ; and William married Nicholaa de Hay, the keeper of Lincoln Castle in her old age.
Philip Fitzerneis gave lands to Castleacre Priory by a deed witnessed by Robert, Abbot of Fontenay, and Eudo Fitzerneis. From him, it seems, sprung a long line, often using the name of Philip, and holding lands in Cambridgeshire and Milton-Harneys in Bedfordshire, called at the present day Milton-Ernest ! According to a common custom, they dropped the " Fitz." Though
