Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/247

 ii s. xii. SEPT. 25, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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T'umagalli gives the preference is in the Florence Giornale di erudizione (8vo series), 15 Jan., 1886. He refers in addition to Maineri, ' Est ! Est ! Est ! o il Vescovo beone ' (Rome, 1888), and to the ' Archivio per lo studio delle tradiz. popol.,' vol. viii., 1889, pp. 299-300. EDWABD BENSLY.

THE CAUL. It is interesting to learn from a, letter which Mr. Ed. Lovett has addressed to the editor of a London newspaper that the danger of submarine vessels has quickened the belief of sailors in the saving efficacy of the caul. The writer says :

" In 1799 as much as 30 guineas was given for one. In 1815 the price had dropped to 12 guineas, and in 1848 it had fallen to 6. It seems to have remained at this for some years, and then gradu- ally the value lell away so much that within the hist ten years or so I have bought thiee or four for my collection at a few shillings each."

On the 26th of August last Mr. Lovett saw a notice of a caul on sale in a shop in the neighbourhood of London Docks.

ST. SWITHIN.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT.

A. R. Hope Moncrieff, 20th ed. (1907), at p. 155 says :
 * BLACK'S GUIDE TO CORNWALL,' edited by

"To an anchorite who had fixed here his solitary dwelling, the Archangel Michael himself appeared, hence Milton's allusion to ' the great vision of the guarded mount.' St. Keyne, in the fifth century, journeyed hither from Ireland."

St. Keyna, Ceinway, or Kainwen had nothing to do with Ireland, and did not live in the fifth century. She was a Welsh saint of whom very little is known. Bishop Challoner, following the account in the

Sancta,' vol. ii. p. 165, writes :
 * Nova Legenda Anglie ' in his ' Britannia

" Her nephew St. Cadocus, son of her sister Oladusa, making a pilgrimage to the mount of St. Michael, met her there to his great joy."

Now St. Cadocus, whose earliest education is said to have been Irish, is thought to have flourished between 522 and 590. Assuming this to be correct, we have St. Michael's Mount as a place of pilgrimage in the sixth century.

What is the date given for the apparition of St. Michael there ? The apparition of

St. Michael on Monte Gargano is variously dated 494 or 530-40 ; that at Mont St. Michel, in Normandy, is dated 708.

M. ltienne Dupont in ' Le Mont Saint- Michel Inconnu ' (Paris, 1912) v at pp. 269-70, writes :

" En 495, y apparut 1'archange saint Michel ; sainte Keyne, princesse comparable a un ange, y vint en pelerimige, et saint Cadoc, son neveu, y demeura longtemps en prieres." He cites, however, no authority for this date.

' Black's Guide * goes on :

" Some rude defences protected its steep at a very early date, for Edward the Confessor's charter in 1047, to the Benedictine monks, whom he settled here, expressly grants its castella and other buildings." Is this charter genuine ?

To continue ' Black's Guide ' :

" After the Conquest the Gilbertines took the place of the Benedictines, and their cell was attached by Robert, Earl of Cornwall, to the Abbey of St. Michael on the coast of Normandy." On this it may be observed, first, that the Gilbertine Order was founded about 1130, and that there seems to be no evidence at all that either St. Michael's Mount or Mont St. Michel was ever Gilbertine ; and secondly, that the Benedictine priory of St. Michael's Mount appears to have become a cell of the Benedictine Abbey of Mont St. Michel in the reign of Henry I. M. Dupont writes at p. 270 :

" En 1144 parut une notification aux termes de laquelle il elait dit que le prieur6 de Saint- Michel de Cornouailles avait e"t bati par Bernard, abb6 du Mont Saint-Michel (de Normandie), 1'annee meme oil mouxut le roi Henri. Son eglise fut consacree par Robert, eveque d'Exeter, dans la neuvieme ann^e du regne d fitienne."

' Black's Guide ' proceeds tc say that " as an alien religious house the Cornish monastery was confiscated by Edward III. in his war with France, and afterwards bestowed upon Sion Nunnery in Middlesex."

This would not appear to be quite correct. The priory of St. Michael's Mount would seem to have survived the legislation against alien priories, and not to have come to an end till 1415, when it was suppressed, and its temporalities handed over to the new Bridgettine foundation of Syon House, " malgre les protestations que presenterent a Henri V. les membres de King's College, de Cambridge," as M. Dupont writes.

M. Dupont, however, must have fallen into some error here, as King's College, Cambridge, was founded by Henry VI. in 1441 ; unless, indeed, St. Michael's Mount survived as a monastery till after that date. What are the facts ? JOHN B. WAINEWBIGHT.