Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/282

 164 OBSCURE WORDS IN CHARTERS. ancient mode of representing the months given by Brady, and the observations by Gough, in his description of the sculptures on the remarkable Norman door- way of St. Mar- garet's Church, York, given in Carter's Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting. In concluding these notices of the Brookland font, the following verses, from an early edition of the Sarum Missal, may be cited as aptly characterising the twelve months, almost precisely in accordance with the representations now for the first time submitted to the notice of antiquaries. " Pocula Janus amat, et Februus algeo clamat : Martius de vite superfliia demit ; Aprilis florida prodit : Frons et flos nemorum Maio sunt fomes amorum. Dat Junius fena ; Julio resecatur avena : Augustus spicas, September colligit uvas. Seminat October ; spoliat virgulta November. Querit amare eibum porcum mactando December." ON CERTAIN OBSCURE WORDS IN CHARTERS, RENTALS, ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST OF ENGLAND. {Contimied.) Advocatio ; advocarii ; ada^ocaria. — In an account of the issues of Lidford Manor and Dartmoor Forest rendered by the ministers of Earl Edmund, 25 Edward I., I find among the " exitus foresta? " a sum of 8fi?. " de redditu cens' pro advocatione habenda." The word " advocatio " appears in our law glossaries with no other meaning attached to it than that of an advowson. It is therefore natural to suppose that certain tenants of the forest at this time held the advowson of Lidford parish (which includes the forest) at an annual census or rent, and that these are the tenants called " censarii " ^ in later accounts. I am satisfied that this inference would be wrong, and that nothing- is less likely than that the advowson should have been let to tenants at an annual rent of 8g?. ; especially to tli6 class of persons whose payments are usually referred to under this head of " exitus forestse." Besides the meaning of advocatio already noticed, the word has another familiar to pleaders. Where a landlord justifies ' The passage is so translated in Rowe's to that work I feel myself peculiarly "Perambulation of Dartmoor," ed. 1848, entitled to criticise without scruple, p. 2(58, by a gentleman, wliose contribution