Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/142

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. n. AUG. 6, 1904

Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, who first ordered them to be observed about the middle of the fifth century, when the city of Vienne, in Dauphine, was greatly injured by earthquakes, and the royal palace destroyed by lightning (Gregory of Tours, in his 'History of the Franks,' ii. 34, and Le Cointe's ' Ecclesiastical Annals of France,' 1665, p. 285). The spiritual benefits accruing to this observance suggested to other bishops its use, and it became an annual institution of the Church.

The secular perambulation of the parish boundaries, with its accompanying Dump- ings and castigations, appears to have been derived from the festivals of Terminus called Terminalia, when the worship of the Roman god of territorial bounds and limits was celebrated always in the open air even his temple being open at the top the peasants crowning the landmarks with garlands, and offering libations of milk and wine, with the sacrifice of a lamb or young pig. These libations may be said to survive as part and parcel of the present custom of beating the bounds, especially as it occurs triennially at the Tower of London, where, towards the nd of the ceremony in 1897, a long table was set out with buns, and sundry assortments of the wines that are red. Perhaps it was at the Reformation that the religious features of the ceremony were relinquished. As to the bum pings and beatings, these were evidently intended as aids to the memory, and probably some similar form was gone through in the ceremonies peculiar to the worship of Terminus, the god of boundaries a worship said to have been instituted by Numa, who ordered that every one should signify the confines of his landed estate by boundary stones consecrated to Jupiter, upon which sacrifices were offered annually. Can it therefore be that the whippings and bumpings were substitutes for the non- Christian sacrifice of Roman Britain? And why were, and are, willow-w&nds so often used ? With regard to the Roman boundary- marks of stone, it is further remarkable that it is the stone posts in the river that are bumped by the Court of the Watermen's Company of the City of London, when the beadles subject the Worshipful Master of the Company to this ordeal, the utility of which can only be justified by the consideration tnat the exact locality of the stones was probably rendered less transient in the memory of the victim than the bruises occasioned by the impact.

The custom of bumping, or beating the bounds, survives also, to this day, in the

parish of St. Andrew Uridershaft in the City, and in the Royal Manor of Dunstable. The following, from Bishop Gibson's ' Codex Juris Ecclesiastic! Anglicani,' 1761, vol. i. p. 253, would seem to indicate that the peculiarly religious aspect of the processions was abro- gated by Queen Elizabeth, or, at all events, the peculiarly Catholic aspect of them :

"In our Liturgy, there is no particular Service appointed for the Rogation Days ; but there are Four Homilies, specially provided to be read with the ordinary Service, on the Three Days before, and on the Fourth, namely, Ascension, or the Day of Perambulation ; and in the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, where Processions are forbidden, and a reservation made for Perambulations, it is provided That the Curate in the said common Perambula- tions (used heretofore in the Days of Rogation), at certain convenient places, shall Admonish the People to give Thanks to God, in the beholding of God s Benefits, for the increase and abundance of his fruits upon the face of the Earth."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

An answer to this query will be found in any of the following popular works, which are easy of access : Brand's * Popular Antiquities,' i. 123 ; Chambers's * Book of Days,' i. 582-5 ; All the Year Round, 1 S. xviii. 300 ; 2 S. xxviii. 443. The Northampton Herald, 11 July, 1903, contains an account from very early days, under the title ' Lore of the Church,' by your esteemed correspondent MR. J. T. PAGE, which gives a list of places where the custom is, or was recently observed.

See also 3 rd S. vi. ; 5 th S. vii., viii. ; 6 th S. iii. ; 8 th S. ii. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

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