Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/563

 io s. vm. DEC. 14, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERJES.

465

trace by authority or note, and should be glad of any confirmation of this.

FRED. HITCHES-KEMP. 6, Beechfield Road, Catford.

[In the index to the second volume of Dr. R. R. Sharpe's valuable ' Calendar of Wills proved in the Court of Husting,' under ' Highways,' are numerous entries for repair of roads in and near London, many of them being set out in detail. The earliest instance in the first volume is 1342.

In Robert Hudson's deeply interesting ' Memo- rials of a Warwickshire Parish,' 1904, reference is made to a peculiar bequest (c. 1615) for repair of a special highway :

"William Ashby deceased gave ij kyne to be let after the decease of his heire by y" churchwardens at 20 11 a cow by the yere the one 20 11 unto y c mending of y heighway betwixt prats pit the pinfold & y c other unto y e poore of Lapworth."

Mr. Hudson's comment (p. 110) illustrates the tenacity of local nomenclature : " Prat's Pit is, of course, the pool which is known by the same name still. ' The pinfold ' has been lost to us within quite recent years by enclosure, but we all know where it stood."

Roger Slye, in 1527, left a bequest of twenty pence yearly for mending the highways between his house and Lapworth Church (pp. 77, 82-3).]

" HACKNEY." The oldest quotations have the spelling hakenei or hakenai, in three syllables. Dr. Murray says that, according to Ducange, it was latinized in England as hakeneius, viz., in 1373.

But it appears in Anglo-Latin at least eighty - one years earlier ! There is no doubt as to this. See vol. ii. of the ' Camden Miscellany,' where are printed the expenses of John of Brabant for 1292. At p. 2 we have : " pro hakeneio ferente tunicam nocturnam et res alias." The date is Saturday, 29 Nov., 1292.

It seems to me obvious, after this, that the word is native English ; and that all the foreign forms, much later in date (as I believe), were merely borrowed from the Old English hakenei, which is thus shown to be at least as old as the time of Edward I.

If this once be granted, the etymology becomes absurdly easy, though it has hitherto been the despair of etymologists. For in the Inquisitiones post Mortem, in 1284-5 (eight years earlier still), I find mention of Hakeney in Middlesex, which is the same word, letter for letter. And this is nothing but the modern Hackney, which is spelt the same way as the horse even now. So the puzzle is solved ; and a " hackney," after all, is only a " Hackney horse." WALTER W. SKEAT.

BEERBREWING AND BRICKMAKING. I am under the impression that the brewing of beer, as distinguished from ale, is supposed, on the strength of an ancient rime, to date from Tudor times.

In the newly published volume of the Patent Eolls, 1436-44, on p. 495 (1441), is a clause

" that whereas none of ' les Berebrewers ' within the realm of England are corrected, searched, or sur- veyed by any officers having the power of enforcing the assize of bread, wine, ale, flesh, fish, or other victuals, although in all other lands where the said mistery is used certain officers chosen out of the berebrewers are appointed to make such search, survey, and correction," &c. William Veysy and another are appointed to survey, &c. This is probably the William Weysy, " brikemaker," who in 1437 (p. 145) is given powers to make bricks for Sheen Manor : I believe an unrecorded early ex- ample of brickmaking.

RALPH NEVILL, F.S.A.

FANSHAWE MEMOIRS. (See ante, p. 439.) May I correct an error at this reference ? The editor of ' The Memoirs of Ann, Lady Fanshawe,' is not Mr. E. J. Fanshawe, the owner of the MS., but his cousin, Mr. H. C. Fanshawe, C.S.I. W. C. B D.

WELSH MAGAZINES : ' YR YMOFYNYDD.' Very few Welsh magazines have run their course for fifty years, and the fact that the above monthly, the organ of the Welsh Unitarians, has just reached the end of sixty years of existence, having been first published in September, 1847, may be thought worthy of a note in ' N. & Q.' The magazine has, however, not been issued quite uninterruptedly. It is somewhat re- markable that during the first fifty-three years of its existence it had only five editors : the Rev. John Edward Jones (Bridgend) from September, 1847, to 1865 ; the Rev. D. L. Evans (Carmarthen) to 1873 ; the Rev. R. J. Jones (Aberdare) to 1887 ; and the Rev. J. Hathren Davies (Cef- ncoedcymmer, near Merthyr) to December, 1900. D. M. R.

Wenallt, Aberdare.

RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. Mr. W. P. Bail- don in an article on the College of Arms in The Ancestor, vol. x. pp. 52-69, wherein he seeks to upset the authority of the College in matters armorial, alleging that bearing arms by prescription is all that is required, says that he cannot understand a confirma- tion of arms.

His contention appears to be that either arms are considered genuine by the heralds,