THEYDON BOIS.
157
syllables, but the first letters Bo or Cro, with the long sound of 0
mentioned by Mr. Ellis as still belonging to modern pronunciation,
gliding as it were into the sound of ys or is, as in oyster, hoist,
boisterous, etc., and so producing the sound heard, when a resident
of the parish of Theydon Bois pronounces the name as if spelt
Boyce or Boice.
As from time to time the sound of letters alters, and as writers
make use of those letters which convey the sounds they hear, the
manner of spelling words and names of places also becomes changed ;
and so in the sixteenth century the prolonged s is produced by es, and
Theydon Boys is changed into Boyes, or the long 0 is expressed by
the diphthong oy or oi, and es takes the place of ys, or e is added after
the s to prolong the sound; later on the s becomes c with e added.17
In 1507, the name of a small manor in Navestock was spelt Boys,
and in 1546 Boyse.18
1558—May 25th.—Licence to marry was granted by the Bishop
of London to Richard Cutt, of Ryelinge, and Mary Elrington, of
Theydon Boyes : to marry at Theydon, aforesaid.
1578.—Edward Elrington held Birch Hall, of the manor of They-
don Boyes, and he also held (land) in the manor of Theydon Boyes.19
By the end of the sixteenth century oyce was used to produce the
same sound as ois had in the fourteenth century. In the verses already
quoted, "Then com a Vois to Joseph," voice is spelt vois, and by
Robert Crossley, who wrote 1559-1567, it is spelt voyce—"The Voyce
of the last Trumpet," in "The Yeoman's Lesson" :—
" For Christes shepe do hear hys voyce
Whych biddith the worke busily
Sixe days, and in the seuenth reioyce,
And geue somewhat to the nedy."
1605.—May 30th.—The Bishop of London granted licence to marry
to Thomas Greene, of Witham, county Essex, husbandman, and
Dorothy Gartwood, of Theydon Boyce, said county, spinster, daughter
of Richard Gartwood, late of Witham aforesaid, husbandman, died
at St. Magnus, London.
1661—September 19.—James Holloway, of Thoydon Boice, Essex,
gentleman, bachelor, about 32, and Margaret Smyth, of St. Bartho-
17 Alexander Hume, in his "Orthographic and Antiquity of the Britain Tongue," written in the
first quarter of the seventeenth century, after mentioning that we sound c as s, says, "And if it
ends the syllable, we add e. But neither for the idle e nor for the sound of s have we any reason."
—Early English Text Society's Publications.
18 Morant's "History of Essex," Vol. 1. Under Navestock.
19 Morant's "History of Essex," Vol. 1., page 162.