Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/498

 488

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. XL JUNE 20, 1915.

quickly grown in pots or other receptacles before the picture of the Madonna evi clently here personifying Ceres.

At Larnaca a particular mumming plaj formerly took place at Easter, representing the life and adventures of the twlce-buriec Lazarus, the patron saint of the town. Th( priests and boys who took part in this per formance received gifts from the chief house holders before whose doors the mumming TVas performed.

On certain festivals, anniversaries, &c. it is customary to make a cake called " kolyva," compounded of crushed wheat fruit, and sesame seeds, and garnished with sugarplums. This cake is set on a table in the church with a number of lighted candles around it, and is sprinkled with holy water and censed. At the end of divine service the priests and people pass out into the churchyard, where seats are arranged, and where the assembled company partake of the cake and wine. Every one gets his or her portion if there is enough to go round, but the men are always served first. Rosewater is sometimes sprinkled over the company. The " kolyva " is commonly made for the anniversary of a relative's death, and a plate containing the cake, with lighted candles stuck in it, is frequently placed on the dead person's grave.

A ceremony of less lugubrious character than those above described takes place in May. The young women of the villages meet together for a feast, with dancing and singing. At its close they throw their finger- rings, with pomegranate flowers, into a pot or vase, which is then covered over with red cloth for three days. On meeting again round the vase they seat themselves in a circle, and the cloth is removed by the youngest of the party, who withdraws the rings one by one ; and, upon the taking out of each ring the girls sing verses, which are sometimes impromptu, and usually satirical or comic. The verses denote the fortune of the several owners of the rings, and the whole ceremony is evidently a divination or oracle.

On St. John's Eve (Midsummer) the cus- tom of kindling bonfires is much the same as used to be the picturesque practice of olden days in Western Europe.

On Christmas Day strangers are some- times annoyed at being wakened at an early hour by the servant of the church hammering at all the street doors in the parish. GEO. JEFFERY, F.S.A.

Cyprus.

(To be concluded.)

HOLBORN CHARTERS.

IN a fragment of a Malmesbury Chartulary among the Cotton MSS. (Faustina B. viii.) are a number of charters relating to the Abbey's land in Holborn, near the Bars. On f. 253d is the rental as follows :

" From the farmers of the new hospice by London called Lyncolnsynne, at the four terms SI. (for the abbot's mass).

" For the tenement of Gaillard Poet in Holborn 20s.

" For the tenement of Walter Bartone, leather- dresser 13s. 4.d."

In the lower margin is a note as to the " hospicium armigeri," stating that the great hospice, which is ruinous, renders 40s., the shop next the hospital renders 9s., the second shop 10s., the third 8s. ; the rent of the fourth has been cut away in binding. The charters begin on f. 155d with a grant by Thomas the Cirger of London and Alice his wife, dated 1296, concerning land with houses upon it in the parish of St. Andrew, having land of the New Temple on the east side, and the Holburne highway on the north. There is an earlier charter about land within the Bar attested by Hugh, son of Otes, Warden (custos) of London (1269).

Other charters mention Portpool, a name now replaced by Gray's Inn. In 1312 John Dodyngton granted to Robert de Wygornia (Worcester) a tenement "within the Bar of Pourtepol," this phrase being substituted for " within the Bar of Holborne " of an earlier deed (1307). Then in 1337 (f. 248) Alice, widow of Robert de Wyrcestre, skinner and citizen of London, granted to her daughter Beatrice, formerly wife of John de Cobelyngton, her brewery in the parish of St. Andrew, Holebourne, " within the Bar of Purtepole," having the tenement of Thomas de Lyncoln on the east, that of

illiam de Elsyng on the west, the highway

on the north, and Thomas de Lyncohrs

garden on the south. Its frontage to the

treet was twelve ells, as measured by the

King's iron ell, and it extended forty -eight

11s southward. Thomas de Lincoln,' whose

surname is interesting as perhaps connected

with the neighbouring Lincoln's Inn, is

nentioned in other charters. A Gilbert

de Lincoln also occurs. Thomas seems, in

334, to have acquired a piece of land with

ouses on it, situated in St. Andrew's parish

n the street of Holebourne between land of

Walter de Flete (on the east) and Gilbert

routphoet and Richard Sutewy' (on the

est), and extending from the highway on

he north to the Bishop of Chichester's