Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/626

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. 11. DEC. 2*. 190*.

of heeles is worth two paire of hands."' England, vol. iii., 'Henrie the Eight.'

Fort Augustus.

B. W.

It was a minor affair at Guinegate, near Calais, that was called the Battle of the Spurs in derision, because, it is said, of the unusual energy with which the vanquished rode off the field. This was on 18 August, 1513. But the great Battle of the Spurs was that of Courtray, in West Flanders, on 11 July, 1302. It was the first great battle between the nobles and the burghers, which, with the subsequent battles of Bannockburn, Crecy, and Poictiers, decided the fate of feudalism. In this encounter the knights and gentlemen of France were entirely over- thrown by the citizens of a Flemish manu- facturing town. The French nobility rushed forward with loose bridles, and fell headlong, one after another, into an enormous ditch, which lay between them and their enemies. The Flemish were led by John, Count of Namur, and William de Juliers, and the whole French army was annihilated. Four thousand golden spurs, worn by the French knights, were found on the field after the fight. Hence the name.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

The name is a translation. Frenchmen themselves named the affair la fournee des eperons, and it took place at Guinegaste (Guinegate), near Terouanne. The " Spours " of MR. DORMER'S "alternative derivation" must be a bad joke. C. S. WARD.

PUBLISHERS' CATALOGUES (10 th S. ii. 50, 118, 357, 455). In a curious little book called ' Culpeper's Astrologicall Judgment of Dis- eases Enlarged ' (1653) there is a very in- teresting catalogue of fifty-five books by the same publisher. The list is headed :

" Reader, These Books following are printed for Nath. Brooks, and are to be sold at his shop at the Angel in Cornhil."

The whole list seems to me of the greatest interest. There are several works by Bishop Hall of Norwich, by Nicholas Culpeper, and one "By the truly noble Elias Ash mole, Esq."

WM. NORMAN. 6, St. James's Place, Plumstead.

STATUE DISCOVERED AT CHARING CROSS (10 th S. ii. 448). If the virtuosi mentioned in the quaint paragraph quoted by MR. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL were " amused " by the statue discovered at Charing Cross, hagiologists may have smiled at the assertion that St. Sebastian, whom it was supposed to represent, had been "shot to death by arrows." We are told

that he survived the attack of the bowmen, and was actually convalescent when he wa beaten to death with clubs. Our St. Edmund, King of the East Angles, was also used as a target by the Danes, and was finally be- headed. ST. SWITHIN.

" OBLIVIOUS " (10 th S. ii. 446). Dr. Murray, ' N.E.D., J vii. 23, says that oblivion may be " forgetfulness as resulting from inattention or carelessness ; heedlessness, disregard," and gives instances beginning with 1470 and 1526. Lewis and Short's 4 Latin Diet.' gives as the ground meaning of obliviscor, "darkening of the mind," " lost in thought," W. C. B.

PHOENICIANS AT FALMOUTH (10 th S. ii. 469), MR. APPERSON will find drawings of the- soapstone ingot mould referred to by Mr. Bent, and of the ingot of tin found at Falmouth (about 1823), in Bent's 'Ruined Cities of Mashonaland '(Longman's "Silver Library," 1896), pp. 216-9. He can see a cast of the ingot at the School of Mines in Jermyn Street. Notes on the ingot by Col. Sir Henry James, R.E., are in the forty-fifth Annual Report of the Royal Institute of Cornwall (1863), where are drawings showing probable method of carrying on horseback and in boats. The block is 2 ft. 11 in. long by 11 in. wide by 3 in. thick (at centre), flat on one side, curved on the other, with indents a foot deep at each end, so that it somewhat resembles an astragalus, the weight 130 Ib. On the flat side is stamped a representation of itself. There are illustrations of it also- in the late Copeland Borlase's ' Historical Sketch of the Tin Trade in Cornwall 7 (Plymouth, 1874). It is generally stated that the Phoenicians traded with Cornwall, and that the Cassiterides were West Cornwall, but the evidence seems very thin. The astragalus is such a convenient shape for carriage by men or a horse that it may well have had independent origin in different countries.

On a wooden pillar illustrated on p. 47 of Bent's book as above are two shields bearing the Cornish arms, the fifteen balls " one and all " ; the chevron and herring-bone patterns seem common to Matabeleland, Mashonaland, and Cornwall. Are these facts also to be taken as evidence of Phoenician origin ? The whole question of the relations of that wonderful people with Northern and Western Europe requires treatment by competent unprejudiced hands. YGREC.

EMERNENSI AGRO (10 th S. ii. 389) This is the shire known popularly as " the Mearns," officially as Kincardineshire. At thefpresent