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HABERDASHER

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 787 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HABERDASHER , a name for a tradesman who sells by See also:

retail small articles used in the making or wearing of See also:dress, such as sewing cottons or silks, tapes, buttons, pins and needles and the like. The See also:sale of such articles is not generally carried on alone. and a " haberdashery See also:counter " usually forms a See also:department of drapers' shops. The word, found in See also:Chaucer, and even earlier (1311), is of obscure origin; the See also:suggestion that it is connected with an Icelandic haprtask, " See also:haversack," is, according to the New See also:English See also:Dictionary, impossible. Hapertas occurs in an See also:early Anglo-See also:French customs See also:list, which includes articles such as were sold by haberdashers, but this word may itself have been a misspelling of " haberdash." The obscurity of origin has See also:left See also:room for many conjectures such as that of Minsheu that " haberdasher " was perhaps merely a corruption of the See also:German Habt ihr das? " Have you that?" or Habe das, Herr, " Have that, See also:sir," used descriptively for a See also:general dealer in See also:miscellaneous wares. The Haberdashers' See also:Company is one of the greater See also:Livery Companies of the See also:City of See also:London. Originally a See also:branch of the mercers, the fraternity took over the selling of " small wares," which included not only articles similar to those sold as " haberdashery " now, but such things as gloves, daggers, See also:glass, pens, lanterns, mousetraps and the like. They were thus on this See also:side connected with the Milliners. On the other See also:hand there was early a See also:fusion with the old gild of the " Hurers," or cap makers, and the hatters, and by the reign of See also:Henry VII. the amalgamation was See also:complete. There were See also:long recognized two branches of the haberdashers, the haberdashers of " small wares," and the haberdashers of hats (see further LIVERY COMPANIES). The haberdashers are named, side by side with the .capellarii, in the See also:White See also:Book (See also:Liber Albus) of the city of London (see Munimenta Gildhallae Londiniensis, ed. H.

T. See also:

Riley, Rolls See also:Series, 12, 1859-1862), and a haberdasher forms one of the company of pilgrims in the See also:Canterbury Tales (See also:Prologue, 361).

End of Article: HABERDASHER

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