Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/575

 10 s. XL JUNE 12, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

475

into the history of a Dorsetshire family CHRISOM (10 S. viii. 270, 377, 457; ix. whose members were recusants in the | 312). The customs connected with the seventeenth century (Somerset and Dorset j chrysom cloth have been often misunder-

Notes and Queries, x. 12, 53) made it plain that the family protected their property interests by legal marriages. It is highly probable that they also sought the blessing

of a priest of their own Church.

The E. I. Co. in the seventeenth

and

eighteenth centuries forbade their servants abroad, on pain of dismissal, to marry in

stood ; Bailey's ' Dictionary,' for instance, is misleading, and some of the replies under this head in ' N. & erroneous statements.

Q.' have contained Good summaries are

to be found in the ' N.E.D.' and in Allen's ' History of Lambeth ' (p. 58, citing divers

authorities).

The " chrysom " was a linen cloth,

Roman Catholic chapels, on the ground that | 1 yard long by 1 yards wide (10 S. viii. such marriages were not recognized as j 377), in which a child was wrapped for legal by the English Law ( ' The Church in i baptism, and with which its forehead was Madras,' p. 234). In the case of one of I covered, after anointment with chrism* a their servants they obliged him to separate compound of oil and balsam, consecrated from the wife he had thus married until he i once a year, on Easter Eve, by the bishop, could be legally married by the chaplain of to whom payments for this unguent were

the settlement.

FRANK PENNY.

The following extracts from the diary of Thomas Dowbiggin, a yeoman of High Winder in Roeburndale, were printed in The Lancaster Observer of 14 June, 1889, and deserve notice as referring to a " mixed " marriage as well as a double one :

" Nov. the 29, 1684. Joan Thornton of Harterbeck and I were married at Thurland Castle by Mr. Gooden."

" December the 15, 1684. Then I obtained a license from Leonard Townson for marrying Joan Thornton of Harterbeck. ' '

" December the 17, 1684. Then Joan Thornton

rendered called " chrismals " (and perhaps " cremage").f

When, a month after the birth, the mother repaired to the church, she paid a fee of twopence, and offered also the chrysom cloth, unless the child had died in the mean time, in which case it was buried in the consecrated robe (which it had been allowed to wear for the first seven days after its christening). The infant dying thus early was described as a chrysom or chrysomer.

In the Morebath accounts I note in 1537 (p. 32) : " Rec. of Marke. . . .for ye occupy - eng of ye almys lygth by the deth of hys ij

and I were married again by Mr. Thomas Kay | crisimers, j d ." That is to say, for the use, or

in Hornby Chapel, he Melling. ' '

being then rector of

April 15, 1685. Upon that day I was con- verted from the Protestant religion by Mr. Peter Gooden and did go unto confession the Sunday following, being Easter Sunday."

consumption, of the alms-light, at the burial of his two ctirisomers. The accounts of St. Michael, Comhill (Journ. Archceolog. Assn., xxv. 359) yield the item, 1555 (?) "for

chrysomes, weddings, funerals " ; and from J. B. Shakespeare's ' King Henry V.' (Act. II. sc. iii. )

I may quote the words of Mrs. Quickly :

44 Gloucester " is the county, it may be ! had been any christom child." Infants are worth stating that there belonged, much I often represented on monuments wearing the later in the last century, to a Hough, with chrysom cloth by way of shroud.
 * f HOTJGH FAMILY (10 S. xi. 429). If " A' made a finer end and went away an it

similar Christian names, Bradley House, between Two Bridges and Soudley, near

Newnham.

D.

One such Elyn, daughter of Sir Edward Bray, in 1516, is depicted on page 25 of " A Manual of Costume as illustrated by Monu- mental Brasses," by Herbert Devitt. J

Mr. Herbert Macklin in 'The Brasses of England,' gives a list of " chrysom brasses " ranging in date from 1510 to 1636, and


 * Cf. the term " chrismatory," the case con

BEEZELY (10 S. ix. 269, 338). In 'Eng- land's Gazetteer,' by Stephen Whatley, 1751, vol. iii. is the following : " Beezley, Hamp- shire, 5m. E. of Petersfield."

F. K. P. in his query writes "five miles, _

east of Petersfield, Hants therefore in taining flasks of chrism and of oil.

Sussex." If the Times Atlas is correct, the t The term "erernage" occurs in an old Exeter

border of Sussex is about 8J miles east of Cathedral MS. printed in Decon Notes and Queries,

Petersfield, and Beezley must be or have A P ril 1907 > P- 53L

been, in Hampshire. I cannot find it in J t I am told that a paper on Chrisom bmsses, reacl

Adams's ' Index Vill.r,'<s ' 1 fin by Mr. Miller Christy before the St. Paul's Ecclesio-

index V illaris, 680. 1( f ical gociety - n ig( ft was to in, Memoria i 8

ROBERT PIERPOINI. O f old Essex,' but I have not seen it.