tin
_mercatus_. Originally the Cornish word must have been _marchad_, and this
form is preserved in Armorican, while in Cornish the _ch_ gradually sunk
to _h_, and the final _d_ to _s_. This change of _d_ into _s_ is of
frequent occurrence in modern as compared with ancient Cornish, and the
history of our word will enable us, to a certain extent, to fix the time
when that change took place. In the charter of Richard, Earl of Cornwall
(about 1257), we find _Marchadyon_; in a charter of 1309, _Markasyon_. The
change of _d_ into _s_ had taken place during these fifty years.(68) But
what is the termination _yon?_ Considering that Marazion is called the
Little Market, I should like to see in _yon_ the diminutive Cornish
suffix, corresponding to the Welsh _yn_. But if this should be objected
to, on the ground that no such diminutives occur in the literary monuments
of the Cornish language, another explanation is open, which was first
suggested to me by Mr. Bellows: _Marchadion_ may be taken as a perfectly
regular plural in Cornish, and we should then have to suppose that,
instead of being called the Market or the Little Market, the place was
called, from its three statute markets, "The Markets." And this would help
us to explain, not only the gradual growth of the name Marazion, but
likewise, I think, the gradual formation of "Market Jew;" for another
termination of the plural in Cornish is _ieu_, which, added to _Marchad_,
would give us _Marchadieu_.(69)

Now it is perfectly true that no real Cornishman, I mean no man who spoke
Cornish, would ever have taken _Marchadiew_ for Market Jew, or Jews'
Market. The name for Jew in Cornish is quite different. It is _Edhow_,
_Yedhow_, _Yudhow_, corrupted likewise into _Ezow_; plural, _Yedhewon_,
etc. But to a Saxon ear the Cornish name _Marchadiew_ might well convey
the idea of _Market Jew_, and thus, by a metamorphic process, a name
meaning in Cornish the Markets would give rise in a perfectly natural
manner, not only to the two names, Marazion and Market Jew, but likewise
to the historical legends of Jews settled in the county of Cornwall.(70)

But there still remain the _Jews' houses_, the name given, it is said, to
the old, deserted smelting-houses in Cornwall, and in Cornwall only.
Though, in the absence of any historical evidence as to the employment of
this term _Jew's house_ in former ages, it will be more difficult to
arrive at its original form and meaning, yet an explanatio