Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/226

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. in. MARCH n, i% 5.

it spelt with an a, as "faitour" or "fay tor," but invariably with an e. Stow, therefore, may not have been so ignorant after all.

We are further told by Mr. Loftie that "Ridgeinere" was so called from a pond which was on the ridge between Holborn and Marylebone, and that this pond or "mere" was drained by William Bleumnd, the eponymus of Bloomsbury. The situation of the manor of Ridgemere or Rugrnore, which had always been a puzzle to topo- graphers, was thoroughly worked out by Mr. A. M. Davies in The Home Counties Magazine, vol. iv. (1903) pp. 20, 120; and Mr. Davies's conclusions were substantially identical with those which I had previously reached in a paper printed in The St. Pancras Guardian for 2 March, 1900. No evidence substantiating Mr. Loftie's assertion that there was a pond in Ridgemere, and that William Blemund drained it, is, so far as I know, to be found anywhere. The manor evidently derived its name from the ridge or higher ground that separated the parishes of St. Pancras, Hampstead, and St. Marylebone, and the second constituent of the word does not mean a pond, but a boundary (Home Counties Magazine, iv. 160-1).

I will conclude by saying that Mr. Loftie's etymologies of Piccadilly and Pimlico seem contestable. The latter is stated to have been derived from Benjamin Pimlico, of Hoxton, who lived before 1589, and who was called after a seaport on Pamlico Sound in North Carolina, whence cargoes of timber and other merchandise came. Pamlico or Pimlico is, according to Mr. Loftie, an Algonquin word, but he does not know what it means. Perhaps MR. JAMES PLATT, JUN., may be able to enlighten us on this point. It may be taken as certain that there was no North Carolina before 1589, even if Pamlico Sound was in existence. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

TREASURE-TROVE.

IT may be of interest to readers of ' N. & Q.,' the pages of which afford a meeting-place for the philologist and the antiquary, to be referred to early uses of the word or words "treasure trove," and to passages which exemplify the change of meaning that ac- companied the substitution for the word "treasure" of the compound substantive " treasure-trove."

To the time of Bracton (temp. Henry III.) and a little beyond, ownerless treasure that had been discovered was, following the terminology of the civil law ('Dig.,' xli. ], 31, 1), alluded to as thesaurus (' Laws of Edw.

Conf.,' xiv. ; 'Laws of Hen. I.,' x. i. ; 'Dia- logus de Scaccario,' lib. i. xiv. ; lib. ii. x. Glanvill, xiv. c. 2 ; k De Officio Coronatoris,' 4 Edw. I., st. 2 ; Bracton, lib. iii. c. 3, s. 4 ; Fleta, lib. i. c. 43 ; ' Coustumier de Normandie,' fo. cxxx.). Thesaurus, according to these authorities, probably included all treasure of whatever sort, while the word inventus, with which it was so often accompanied, referred merely to the fact of its discovery.

It was not, however, directly from thesaurus that the word " treasure " was derived, nor, of course, the word "trove" from the word inventus, for which, when Latin gave place to Norman-French, it was substituted.

Although, during the first half of the six- teenth century, " treasure-trove," in its tech- nical sense, appeared as a compound sub- stantive, even later than the period of Coke (ob. 1634), the words "treasure" and "trove" occasionally continued to be used separately to denote " treasure that had been found."

Britton, converting, in the reign of the first Edward, Bracton's compilation into the vernacular of the courts, wrote "de tresor muscee en terre trove," together with other things " troves," as belonging, in certain cir- cumstances, to the king (Nichol's ed., liv. i. ch. xviii. i.). When expounding the duties of a coroner, Britton said, " Et aussi apent these instances that Britton did not use tresor trove as a compound substantive. Further, from his close following of Bracton, i it is apparent that in his day tresor trove \ had not in meaning the present-day limita- tion.
 * a lour office de enquere de viel tresor trove
 * en terre" (liv. i. ch. ii. 18). It is clear from

According to the ' Mirror of Justices ' (temp. Edw. II.), "tresour auncienement mucie en terre" was, from early times, retained by the king in the absence of known ownership (ed. Selden Soc., lib. i. ch. iii.).

Simultaneously with the use of Norman- French in law-books, letters patent employed the older word thesaurus, e.g. in the patent "De terra fodenda pro thesauro abscondito quserendo" (17 Edw. II. in. 12). Further, the word trovura, according to Madox, appears in 9 & 10 Ed. I, Rot. 4 a, as equivalent to treasure trove.

Statham, in the printed edition of his 'Abridgement' (from the press of Tailleur of Rouen, 1470-90), stated, "Thesaurum inventum competit domino meo regi," &c (Corone, Pasche, 22 Edw. III.), as well as "Punysshement per tresour troue pris et emporte," &c. (Corone, Mich, 22 Edw. III.), and "Cestui a que le proprete est avera tresour troue," &c. (Corone, Mich., 22 Hen. VI )