Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/548

 452

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. L JUNE 4, MM,

Abbey, which occupied the site of the present station and its immediate neighbourhood. At Salisbury is a picturesque church dedi- cated to the martyr, with a curious fresco of the Resurrection over the chancel arch.

A. R. BAYLEY.

The seal of Beauchief Abbey shows the murder of Becket, and engravings of it may be seen in Mr. S. O. Addy's book on that house ; see also the Reliquary (Old Series), vii. 202, 205, for the seal and an altarpiece on the same subject. Many more instances may be found by means of the 'Index to Arckceologia, i.-l.,' under Becket and Thomas.

W. C. B.

The seal of Langdon Abbey, Kent, bore a representation of the martyrdom in Canter- bury Cathedral, with the inscription (temp. Dugdale's Continuators), CAVSA. DOMVS. XPI. MORTEM, si.... JOHN A. RANDOLPH.

There is a valuable representation, in glass, of St. Thomas a Becket "the only martyr of his century," as Cardinal Newman, in his 'Lives of the English Saints,' calls him and of St. Thomas of Hereford, in the church at Credenhill, near Hereford. The figures are perfect, about fifteen inches in height, surrounded by quarries and a border. Both are in vestments, with mitre, pastoral staff in left hand, right hand being erect. Legend above records their names. The work appears to be early fourteenth century (F. P. Havergal in the Antiquary, July, 1882, p. 39).

The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his ' Lives of the Saints,' says St. Thomas is represented in art,_ erroneously, as martyred in full archiepiscopal canonicals before the high altar (ed. 1877, * December,' p. 403). ^ In connexion with Woodspring Priory, in Somersetshire, a curious circumstance which occurred at Kew Stoke Church was noted at a meeting of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society in August, 1881. A stone of unusual appearance was noticed, which, on its removal, disclosed a recess containing a vessel partly filled with a substance apparently blood. This is sup- posed to have been a relic of St. Thomas of Canterbury, removed from Woodspring, and secreted at the dissolution of the priory in the hiding-place in which it was found.

Dr. F. G. Lee, in a letter to the Antiquary for January, 1881, says that when he was at Oxford in 1850-9

" th ere was a perfect representation of this most holy saint and martyr in one of the windows of Bt. Michaels Church in that city. He was represented m full pontificals, and with a crozier in

his right hand Prior to the year 1842 there was

a fragment of the head of the same saint in one of the north windows of the choir of the prebendal church of Thame, Oxfordshire ; but, with the fragments, it was then destroyed, and the window was filled with plain white quarries. Anciently Thame Church owned a relic of the saint, but it was stolen by the visitors of Edward VI."

St. Thomas a Waterings, a former place of execution on the Old Kent Road, was so called from a brook or spring dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket (see further Cunning- ham's 'London,' s.v.).

J. HOLDEN MAcMlCHAEL.

In Knight's 'Old England,' vol. i., fig. 411 is a reproduction of a painting of the martyr- dom of Thomas a Becket in the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Stratford.

At Bramfield, in this county, where he was one of the early rectors, is a pond known as Becket's Pond, the water of which he is traditionally reported to have used in brew- ing some excellent beer.

MATILDA POLLARD.

Belle Vue, Bengeo.

There is, or was, a representation of the death of Thomas a Becket in fresco in the old church at Preston, near Brighton, but it is many years since I saw it. BRUTUS.

If MR. WARD will consult the General Indexes of ' N. & Q.' he will find references to ' Guernsey Charms on St. Thomas's Day ' (21 December), ' Going a-Goodiug,' some- where called " Mumping," or otherwise begging alms or kind for various purposes, with the customs at different places on that day. He will also find accounts of St. Thomas's Hospital, the shrine of St. Thomas at Madras, and a church in Vintry Ward, burnt at the Fire of London (1666), and not rebuilt. To any of these articles I can refer him should it be necessary.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

EASTER SUNDAY IN 1512 AND 1513 (10 th S. i. 388). The old Julian reckoning was univer- sally observed in the Christian Church in those years. Easter Day in 1512 fell on 11 April, and in 1513 on 27 March. D, C (the second to be used in finding Easter), and B are the Sunday letters for those years, the Golden Numbers 12 and 13. All these will be found tabulated in ' L'Art de verifier les Dates.'

As the Gregorian style was not introduced into the Roman calendar until 1582, I am at a loss to imagine what " valuable work of reference" is alluded to by M. C. L. as giving 8 April for the date of Easter in 1513. In.