Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/120

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NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. XL j A y. 30, MOB.

If gioyr be a Celtic word meaning " crooked," as stated in Sharpe's ' Gazetteer,' this hamlet should be on the Kentish coast, since there is a place named Gower in Wales, between Swansea Bay and Burry River, with a broken limestone coast, full of caves. But this can hardly have been the origin of the Kentish hamlet, situated as it is inland, a little west of Eastry and south- west of Sandwich. Are there, however, any physical features characterizing the place to justify this interpretation of the name ? or was it so designated after the name of some owner ? Gower the poet and Bishop Gower are said to have been natives of the little Glamorganshire peninsula so named.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

ST. ANTHONY OF VIENNE (10 S. xi. 47). A paragraph in a Yorkshire newspaper introduced me to the difficulty which has caused CANON AUSTEN to consult ' N. & Q.' At a meeting held at the York Blue Coat School, in a hall which belonged of old to St. Anthony's Hospital, he stated that the patron was said to be of Vienne. Anthony of Egypt he knew, and Anthony of Padua ; but who was this ? I conned my books for a space, and came to the conclusion that there never was " no sich person " so styled by mortals. How the ascription originated I cannot tell, but I incline to attribute it to the enemy, the printer's devil.

That cautious antiquary Mr. Robert Davies, F.S.A., has indeed left record in a pamphlet, ' The History of St. Anthony's Hospital ' (York, 1869), pp. 6, 7, that

"although ' The Fraternity or Guild of Saint Martin of York' was the designation prescribed by the charter, the original founders, who had been engaged in forming the association several years before it was incorporated, had from the first determined that St. Anthony of Vienne should be their patron saint, and they persisted in retaining the name of the guild of St. Anthony, notwith- standing the directions of the charter and of a remarkable proviso with which it concludes, prohibiting the new fraternity from placing or making any image of St. Anthony in any manner under colour of the guild, which should be prejudiced to the Master and House of St. Anthony of London or their successors, without having first obtained the consent of that house under their seal."

One veryTgood reason for regarding " Vienne as a misprint is that nearly at the end of his pamphlet Mr. Davies says (pp. 30, 31).

"Every person is acquainted with the famous legend of St. Anthony the Abbot, the patriarch of monks, and the founder of many monasteries. If his temptations were numerous, scarcely less numerous were the vicissitudes of the hospital in

Peaseholme [the one under consideration] of which he was the patron saint."

Drake of ' The History and Antiquities of the City of York ' (p. 315) asserts that the- gild or fraternity connected with St. Anthony's Hall consisted of a master and eight keepers, who were commonly called " Tanton Pigs." This again connects it with the abbot, though the historian goes on lightly to remark : " The legendary story of St. Anthony of Padua and his pig is represented in one of the windows of the church of St. Saviour's."

In such wise are we taught ! I think it is highly probable that St. Anthony of Vienne was a child of the devil to whom I have referred. ST. SWITHIN.

BLUE COAT SCHOOL COSTUME (10 S. xi. 47)- The boys at Christ's Hospital are attired in a sturdy survival of the costume ordinarily worn about the time that their school was founded ; and in other parts of the country there are establishments for the relief of needy parents where the children's dress marks the antiquity of the charity's inception. The Blue Coat School at York, which I have just referred to in my endeavour to answer a question as to St. Anthony " of Vienne," furnishes a good example. It was set going in 1705, and the fortunate- lads who are there wear, with many modifications, clothes which I should say, retain reminiscences of the- age of Anne. I may quote with advantage what a late Master of the School, Mr. Edward Robinson, wrote about the tailoring of his charges in 1886 :

" The apparel of the boys was blue coats faced with yellow, sad-coloured waistcoats and leather breeches, grey stockings, bands, and round bonnets. Each boy was to have every year one coat, waist- coat, and breeches, two shirts, two pairs of stockings, three bands, and a bonnet. All these were computed to cost 1 6s. per annum. The leather breeches cost 2a. Qd. a pair. Braces were apparently not considered necessary. Leather breeches insecurely attached by leather strings at the knees would be neither elegant nor comfortable. That the boys' knees suffered we may be sure. The Committee found at their meeting held 1717, i.e., 12 years after the establishment of the School, that several boys were 'crampt' and lame in their knees. The leather breeches, however, they did

not blame This apparel was maintained until

sixty years ago, when trousers of fustian superseded the leather breeches." ' The York Blue Coat School : its Establishment, Maintenance, and Chronology.'

ST. SWITHIN.

The gown of the earliest Christ's Hospital scholar was not blue, but russet-coloured, or of a reddish brown. It was while the young King Edward was in the throes of death