Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/499

 io* s. V.MAY 26. woe.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

411

churchyard wall for protection. For cant pieces see Ogilvie's ' Imp. Diet.'

By an " Abbott <J of land is not "abate' meant, i.e., land become vacant through the death of the owner? " A stranger abateth, that is, entreth upon a House or Land, void by the death of him that last possessed it, before the Heir take his Possession, and so keepeth him out" ((Jewel's 'Interpreter,' 1701). On the other hand, we find "abbots," the governors of abbeys or monasteries, occurring as u abettes" in Wright's ' Monastic Letters/ p. 206.

Pace money. Way money, i.e., help for a traveller in distress? "To Jerusalem take we the pace" ('Towneley Mysteries,' 1460, xxviii. 364, quoted in 'H.E.D.,' 'Pace,'ii.4.

Clipt money. The first attempt to prevent the clipping of hammered money was under King Henry VII. , who, "to avoid clipping for the future," coined new groats and two- pences with outer cirples, and ordered that "the whole Scripture should be about every piece of Gold." But this did not effectually remedy the evil, for counterfeiting as well as clipping, to both of which frauds the ham- mered money was liable, were still prevalent in 1663 j and from 1691 to 1697 there were no less than eight million four hundred thousand pounds of this clipped and hammered money brought to the several mints in London and the country. " It is very much to the honour of King William III.," says the author of ' Numrai Britannici Historia,' " that he removed the greatest Abuse in the Money that was ever known in England, at a Time of the greatest Danger and Expence, with very little Grievance to the People, by recoining the Money, that had been clipp'd to that degree, that a Half Crown would scarce weigh a Shilling." 1727, p. 137.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Cant. The name given to a piece of iron placed along a wall to prevent cattle jumping over it. For meaning of word see Skeat's 4 Etymol. Diet.'

Tos y or toose; see under "tease" for the connexion between this and the green say or serge.

Destitute of being, the means of existence.

Pace money. Pass money, or vagrant allowance.

Payments for children refer to the poll tax. p. p.

The widow Bell relieved by a gift of 5s., " being destitute of a being," was no doubt homeless. One of the dialect meanings of this word is that of an abode or lodging. I would refer your correspondent to the follow- ing quotation from 'David Copperfield,' chap, xxxii. :

" ' No, no, Dan'l,' she returned, * I shan't be that. Doen't you mind me. I shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you' (Mrs. Gummidge meant a home) ' again you come back to keep a Beein here for any that may hap to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I shall set outside the door as I used to do. If any should come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman true to 'em a long way off.'"

JOHN T. PAGE.

SAINT WITH FIVE STARS (10 th S. v. 348). He is St. John Nepomuc, martyred, after torture, on 16 May, 1383, by being thrown into the river at Prague by the orders of the Emperor Wenceslas IV. He was a canon of Prague Cathedral, and confessor to Wen- ceslas's wife, the Empress Jane. The em- peror was a dissolute tyrant, and attempted to extort from St. John the statements that the empress, a pious woman, had made in confession. The confessor refused to betray his trust, and was martyred. The following stanza from the office hymn of the First Vespers of the saint sufficiently explains the stars :

Undis profundis mergitur,

Mersum sed applaudentibus

Undse sal u taut ignibus :

Stellse natant in flumine.

He is represented with his finger on his lips. Pustet of Ratisbon issues a coloured print of St. John Nepomuc, but, on consulting a specimen, I find that no information is given as to the name of the painter of the original. Moreover Pustet's print is clearly different in important details from the picture which BUMBLE BEE describes. Possibly that picture may be a copy of the altar-piece of St. John Nepomuc's altar in the church of St. John Lateran at Rome. R. JOHNSON WALKER.

St. John Nepomuc, who was thrown from bhe Karlsbriicke at Prague in 1383 for refusing to break the seal of confession. His body is said to have floated for some time in the Moldau with five stars above his head. Ha was canonized in 1728. His feast is kept on 16 May. His cult is exceedingly popular in the Austro Hungarian Empire, and I believe also in Germany. There is a picture of him ^n the chapel of SS. Simon and Jude in Prague Cathedral. Perhaps this may be the one of which BUMBLE-BEE is in search.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

There is a statue to St. John Nepomucene on the bridge at Bruges between the Belfry and the Dijver, with five (gilt) stars on a metal) nimbus. I remember a Catholic Driest's mortuary card of 1865 with the saint epresented with a five-starred nimbus, and a "andscape behind him ; and I may be able to