Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/100

72 of it to see the transept altar, and this squint is cut from the very jamb of the low side window, or sanctus bell door."

A correspondent who signs A. P. P., has sent the following observations on the same subject. "The conclusion to which I have arrived respecting the use of these openings, and which all observation as yet has tended to confirm, is that they lighted the priest's vestry; which I take to have been partitioned off from the chancel by wood-work, and to have had flat ceiling. That there must have been a vestry, or sacrarium, or sacristy, in every parish church, can hardly be doubted by any who know the usages of the medieval Church. No one (as yet, that I am aware of) has assigned a place for it. That it was in the chancel, can admit of no doubt: the height of the window would be exactly suited to it: its position, generally, as far as I have observed, near the priest's door, will increase the probability; add to these that (as far as my observation goes) it is usually close to the spot from whence the staircase ascended to the rood-loft, on which at certain seasons the sacred dramas used to be performed, and (it is probable) little doubt will remain in any mind. I have submitted this elucidation to members of the Roman Church, and they assented at once. A very perfect specimen restored ad unguem may be seen in the chancel of Hinton Ampner church, near Winchester. It was my wish to have restored it to its (I conceive) original and legitimate use; to light a vestry to be partitioned off as above suggested. But the ecclesiastical authorities of the diocese prohibited it: it has therefore been temporarily filled up with stone-work, in the hope that eventually the interdict may be removed, and the church allowed the decency of a vestry."

The Rev. Charles W. Bingham, of Melcombe, Dorset, communicated to the Monthly Meeting of the Institute on January 10, an extract of a farm lease, dated in the second year of Edward the Third, made by Alice, widow of Robert of Wynterbourne, to Robert Fitz-Richard, of Byngham. Twenty-four acres of land were demised for five years, at a reserved rent, "of the half of all manner of grain on the aforesaid twenty-four acres growing, that is to say, every other sheaf ;" and on condition that the tenant should manure yearly two acres of the said land, "ove les fienz de sa faude." Mr. Bingham requested an explanation of this clause. It appears probable that the word fienz is merely the Anglo-French mode of writing "fiens, fiente, or fems," fimus, ordure. "Faude" is of course the cattle fold ; according to this reading the tenant covenanted to apply as manure the litter of his fold. Such a clause is not uncommon in medieval leases; thus in a demise, for a term of years, by John de Vere, earl of Oxford, of the manor of Fyngrethe, co. Essex, dated 20th of April, in the fifteenth year of Edward the Third, it is provided that the lessee shall manure the land with "les