Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/235

 10 s. x. SEPT. 5, 1908. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the Coronation Mayor (Col. R. Inglis Hall, V.D., J.P.), and by him shown in the recent Old Lancaster Exhibition.

White-metal copies of all these medals were presented to each child attending the elementary schools of the borough.

T. CANN HUGHES, M.A., F.S.A. Hon. Secretary to the Lancaster Diamond

Jubilee and Coronation Celebrations.

[Replies from MR. D. GLEN MACKEMMIE and MB. R. PIERPOINT will appear shortly.]

BENNETT OF BALDOCK (10 S. ix. 228, 333, 395). With reference to the suggestion at ix. 396 that Thomas Benett of Reading was an ancestor of Robert Benett, Bishop of Hereford, the following particulars from old wills may be of interest.

Robert Bennet of Radyng (? Reading) made his will 21 June, 1501 ; desired to be buried in St. Mary's, Reading ; mentioned sons and daughters, Robert and Thomas Bennet, Radulph Millyngton, John Darlyng and wife Isabella ; witnesses were Robert, Thomas, and John Bennet ; proved in P.C.C., " 4 Blamyr," 25 Nov., 1501.

Robert Benet of Redyng the elder, clothier of the diocese, made his will 4 Sept., 1509 ; desired to be buried in the parish church of St. Mary at Reading at the foot of his father's grave ; gave to July an his wife lands in Southstoke, co. Oxford ; men- tioned lands in Cav'shm (? Caversham, near Reading) ; mentioned his three sons, viz., William Benet the elder, Robert Benet, and William Benet the younger ; also his daughter Julyan ; appointed as overseers William Swayn and Thomas Benet ; proved in P.C.C., " 14 Holder," 22 Feb., 1515/16, by Julian the relict.

Thomas Benett of New Windsor made his will 18 Oct., 1528 ; desired to be buried at Clewer, near Windsor ; mentioned pro- perty at Newbury ; mentioned his wife Katherine and his son Master William Benett, Doctor ; also his brother John Benett ; proved in P.C.C., 1 Jankyn 12 Jan., 1528/9.

John Bennett of Clewer, co. Berks, mer- chant-tailor of London, made his will 26 July, 1595 ; mentioned his brother Peter Bate and his sister Johana, who first

married Singleton, secondly Tewe,

and thirdly Nicholas Castell ; his " cosen " Clara Travell, wife to Edward Travell, daughter to his sister Mary ; also Nicholas Towke, son to his sister Mary ; appointed Johana his wife residuary legatee and execu- trix ; proved in P.C.C., " 63 Scott," 10 Oct., 1595.

In the Archdeaconry Court of Berks there are several wills of Berkshire, Benetts, and an inventory (dated 12 Feb., 1547/8) of the goods of Robert Benett of New Windso r.

G. R. B.

" MULATTO " (10 S. vii. 68, 116 ; viii. 37). As I said at the last reference, this word is apparently derived from mediaeval Latin mulatus. This in the ordinary way would become mulato in Italian : but inasmuch as that language already possessed the words malato, sick, and malattia, sickness, the resulting form was mulatto, with greater stress on the last syllable. This reason would hold good also in Portuguese, which has an obsolete word malato, French malade. I think, however, the formation took place in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese adopting the word afterwards.

It is not easy to comprehend Ducange's definition. Had it read " ex parentibus Africanis et Indis commixtim," it would certainly have meant " from African and Indian [? Asiatic] parents conjointly " ; but as he says " mixtim," it may be that Eurafrican and Eurasian half-breeds are alluded to. " Indus " he defines as of cerulean or azure hue, so that the American Indian cannot be envisaged. From my own observation, I should say that the union of the Asiatic with the woolly head is of much rarer occurrence than that be- tween the European and the African or the Asiatic Mulatto, as Ducange alleges, may have in the first instance denoted an African and Asiatic hybrid ; while later the term might have been extended to crosses between either of those races with the white man. N. W. HILL.

New York.

" TANNEB " = SIXPENCE (10 S. x. 50). Hotten says of it : " Perhaps gypsy tawno (tdno), little, or Latin tener, slender." It is more likely to have been derived directly by the ancestors of the gipsies from the Indian silver coin tanga or tana, which has been rated from fivepence (Malcolm, 1815), to sevenpence-halfpenny, which is or was its value in Turkestan.

This would make its average value six- pence. The obvious derivation is the San- skrit tanka, a weight of silver equal to four moshas, a stamped coin. See * Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant,' by Barrere and Leland. T. SHEPHEBD.

Brewer's ' Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ' suggests from " the Italian danaro, small change. Similarly a thaler is called a, dollar." . C. R.