Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/19

 11 S. I. JAX. 1, 1910.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

11

COL. GORDON IN ' BARNABY RUDGE.' In the forty-ninth chapter of ' Barnaby Rudge * Col. Gordon makes a speech at the House of Commons to Lord George Gordon the Rioter. As a matter of fact the speech is lifted from ' The Annual Register J for 1780 (p. 258, Appendix to the Chronicle). Who was this Col. Gordon ? The only Gordon I know of in this Parliament was Lord George's cousin, General Lord Adam Gordon. J. M. BULLOCH.

JOSEPH D' ALMEIDA. He is described in portrait catalogues as a " Jew Stockbroker." His portrait was painted by Wm. Lawranson, and engraved in mezzotint by John Jones, and published by him 9 Aug., 1783. He is referred to in the Memoirs of Jacob de Castro, the actor, as a patron of the drama. I should be obliged for any information and references in contemporary magazines and papers. ISRAEL SOLOMONS.

91, Portsdown Road, VV.

" PARSONS ?i NOT IN HOLY ORDERS. (10 S. xii. 350.)

I HAVE a document in which Sir Thomas Sackville claims the great tithe of lamb and wool of some sheep in the parish of Bibury as " person of Bibury. Sir. Thomas was Lord of the Manor and Lay Rector of Bibury, and rebuilt Bibury House in 1634. He uses the term throughout as if it belonged to him of right, and the spelling " person ' ? shows that the meaning of the term had not then been obscured by the modern spelling " parson. " If I now called myself Parson of Bibury, which I have an un- doubted right to do, most people would think that I had created myself a clerk in holy orders in derogation of my brother the Vicar.

One cannot imagine an acolyte having the impudence to call himself the "Persona Ecclesiae." SHERBORNE.

feherborne House, Northleach.

Before the three Lateran Councils of 1123, 1139, and 1179 tithes were in this country in theory devoted to pious uses, but practically administered by the lords of the land. The fifth canon of the first Lateran Council of 1123 then ordained: " We decree that no laymen, however religious they be, shall have power of

disposing of tithes. n In 1139 the tenth canon of the second Lateran Council enacted " Tithes, which canonical authority shows to have been granted for works of piety, we forbid by apostolic authority to be in the possession of laymen." Then in 1179 Canon 14 of the third Lateran Council enacted : " We forbid laymen, who detain tithes at peril of their souls, to transfer them to other laymen in any way whatso- ever . n

The effect of these canons soon made itself felt in the gifts of tithes to religious houses. But many of the smaller lords were reluctant to grant their tithes to bodies at a distance, and preferred to retain them for local use. This object was effected by tonsuring the lord's steward or other lay person who administered them, whereby he became converted into an " ecclesiastical person," and as a clerk could hold them without being in holy orders. The lord's grantee thereby became responsible to the bishop for the administration of them, and was called in consequence the responsible person (certa persona), but was commonly spoken of as the " parson. n

The term occurs in the Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164, and in Canon 6 of the Council of York in 1195. The Exeter registers show parsons and vicars or chaplains existing side by side in a large number of parishes in Devon and Cornwall prior to the " consolidations " effected in the thir- teenth century.

Further information on this subject may be found in a paper read by me before the Society of Antiquaries on 28 Feb., 1907, entitled ' The Treasury of God ; or, The Birthright of the Poor.*

OSWALD J. REICHEL.

Lympstone, Devon.

The subjoined quotation from Gasquet's ' Parish Life in Mediaeval England,' wherein it occurs at p. 71, opening chap, iv., which relates to ' The Parish Clergy, 2 may be useful under this heading :

"The word 'parson,' in the sense of a dignified personage ' the person of the place ' was, in certain foreign countries applied in the eleventh century, in its Latin form of persona,, to any one holding the parochial cure of souls. English legal writers, such as Coke and Blackstone, have stated the civil law signification of the word as that of any 'person' by whom the property of God, the patron saint, the church or parish was held, and who could sue or be sued at law in respect of this property. In ecclesiastical language, at any rate in England, according to Lyndwood, the word parson ' was synonymous with 'rector.'"

WILLIAM MCMURRAY.