Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/524

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s, x. DEC. 20, 1914.

it. he remains poor. He is like a fountain whic plays for a while with the water with which it i supplied, hut which ceases to now as soon as th liquid treasure is exhausted."

The quotation is from Oxenford's English version of the ' Conversations,' ii. 192-3 The German of the earlier part is :

" \Vir leben in einer Zeit. wo so viele Kultur ver breitet ist, dass sie sich gleichsam der Atmosphare mitgeteilt h-it, worin ein junker Mensch atmet. Poetische und philosoohische Gedanken leben urn regen in ihm, tnit der Luft seiner Um^ebung hat er sie eingesogen. absr er denkt, sie wiiren sein Eigen- tum, und so spricht er sie als da? seinige aus."

C. C. B.

THE WARDROBE OF SIR JOHN WYNN OF GWYDYR (11 S. x. 469). "Two pare of leather Yamosioes and one of clothe." The materials of which these are made, the fact that they occur in pairs, and their placa in the inventory, all the subsequent items being boots or spurs, seem to show that what we have here are gamashes, or gaiters. See the ' N.E.D.' under ' Gamash.'

The date of the inventory is 1616, and ' The Stanford Dictionary ' has a quotation from Shelton's translation of ' Don Quixote,' 1612 : "A paire of Breeches and Gamasheos of the same coloured cloth."

The 'N.E.D.' gives several spellings, in- cluding " gamachios " and " gammashoes." EDWARD BENSLY. Aberystwyth.

on

Calendar of the Close Rolls preservsd in the Public Record Office. Richard II. Vol. I. A.D. 1377- 1381. (Stationery Office.)

THE text of this volume is the work of Mr. W. H. B. Bird ; the Index was compiled by Mr. C. T. Flower. Pew of the Calendars we have recently perused can vie with this one in liveliness and variety of interest. The country at the period was all agog with the probability of a French invasion ; a large number of the entries are connected with the defence of the realm and the retention of men in their proper cities and coasts for that purpose. Indeed, on the very first page we read an order to one Richard atte Leese, knight, " with all soeed to repair to the Isle of Shepeye. . . .as the King's enemies of France and their adherents have landed on the coast of England and inflicted intolerable hurt." We notice that the royal document does not mention where the landing occurred. The ship-money dispute of nearly three centuries later might be illustrated by several documents here requiring of York and Nottingham and many another inland town that their men should contribute rateably towards the building of " balingeres " for the Royal Navy. There is a most interesting indenture made between John Soniaye, " sohip.nan," an I sundry merchants of

" Cambrugge " and " Iluntyngdon," as to the building by the said John of "a new vessel of good timber and planks called a ' balingere,' with 42 oars," many further particulars of which are given, too long, unfortunately, to be quoted here. Our present difficulty in the matter of spies, something, too, of our anxious method of dealing with them, is apparent in the measures to meet this French invasion. The most curious entry in regard to this is the order to set free " Frances, wife of John Fernandes of Spain, from Neugate prison " she having been committed to gaol upon suspicion of spying, and the King having " com- passion upon her long imprisonment, being upon suspicion only." But the most precious of the incidents of the war which appea.r here is the letter of the Sire de Coucy to the King, resigning his Order of the Garter, seeing that the King of France, his natural sovereign, is at war with the King of England. A memorandum states that this was brought to Richard at Hatton Grange by a page called John Pieres, " speaking the English idiom," " wrapped in a paper addressed to him."

The affairs of the wool trade and the Calais staple are abundantly represented, and several good notes might also be made from these pages concerning the relations between the King and the English clergy and the Pope. It will be remembered that Richard later on was to initiate something of a new definition of the proper limits of Papal authority.

Among domestic documents the most valuable and curious are, perhaps, the two long lists of the effects of Sir John Surrey arrested with the goods of Alice Perrers, which the knight asks to have restored to him. They should attract the attention of every antiquary to whom they are not yet mown. Several orders are concerned with Dxford, and they are instructive both as to the ife of the University and the administration of the city. There is the order to the Sheriffs enforcing 'he ordinance that every goldsmith shall have his own particular mark for the silver plate made by lim ; there is an order to the authorities of London to suffer the widow women of the city " to oy all liberties and free customs which they used to have time out of mind.... that hence- orth they may have no cause of complaint " r here is another order to the Mayor and Sheriffs >f London, upon a petition of a great number of he inhabitants, to abate the nuisance caused by he slaughter " of great beasts " in the City and uburbs a nuisance which is rather vividly escribed ; and there is the long story of how ban Celers, a poor woman, by proceedings in Chancery, upon her petition to the Archbishop he Chancellor, recovered money and jewels which he put in a "forser," in a wain to be taken to 1/ondon, and by the carter's fault it fell out upon he high street between Dunstable and Radburne, nd was found and kept by certain men of Dun- stable.

It is needless to dwell on the abundance of material for the genealogist and the student of local history. One of the most valuable docu- ments from an antiquarian point of view a mention of which must conclude this notice, necessarily most inadequate is the note of the proceedings at the King's Coronation, giving the claims of the representatives of different lands or families to perform the divers offices at that