Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/52

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. xn. JULY 17, 1915.

Haarlem he paid 8 stivers. 11 The rates -depended, of course, on the number of passengers carried, and if a party was not ready, the traveller had to wait until one was made up.

There was not much to relieve the mono- tony of land travelling in the Low Countries. Sir' Wm. Brereton once met a couple of dromedaries on the road, which frightened the horses and seem to have created some- thing of a diversion. Sir William, with com- mendable prudence, left the driver to look ,fter the horses and leapt out of the wagon. b Such adventures, however, were th,e ex- ception rather than the rule, and what with the noise and discomfort and the jolting, which often produced seasickness, the travellers cannot have had a very pleasant time 'of it.

The inns in the Low Countries were on the whole frequent and clean, though the cooking was indifferent. Indeed, one traveller goes so far as to say that God sent his meat, but the Devil sent the dresser/ 1 Charges were high on account of the heavy imposts levied on all kinds of commodities. Accord- ing to Reresby 6 you could not eat under a crown ordinary, but as against this Sir Wm. Brereton dined at " The Blue Anchor " at the Hague for 26 stivers and was satisfied.* The charge for beds as apart from refresh- ment seems to have been reasonable. Brereton paid 17 stivers a night at Rotterdam in 1634, but complains of a charge of 1 guilder 4 stivers for a quart of burnt claret.* The travellers slept generally two or more in a room. At the Hague Pepys lay with his iriend the Judge Advocate in a room with two other beds in it, but all very neat and handsome, and his boy slept by them on a bench. h The beds were large, and so lofty that you needed a kind of ladder to climb into them ; and it was well to make your will before going to bed, for if you fell out you were in danger of breaking your neck. From all accounts the beds were scrupulously


 * ' Itinerary ' (1908), iii. 469.

b ' Travels,' 35.

c W. Montague, 'Delights of Holland' (1696), 5.

d W. Montague, ' Delights of Holland' (1696), 17.

c ' Travels,' 127.

f ' Travels,' 37. Swift notices an unpleasant trait : " Like a Dutch reckoning, where, if you dispute the unreasonableness and exorbitance of the bill, the Landlord shall bring it up every time with new additions." 'Works' (ed. Temple "Scott), vi. 118.


 * Travels,' 18.

h ' Diary,' 1C60, 14 May.

clean. If you died in a Dutch bed, it was said, th,is comfort you would leave for your friends, that at least you died in clean linen. a MALCOLM LETTS.

(To ~be continued.)

BETTS.

MANY suggestions have been made with regard to the origin of the family name Betts, Bailey's ' Diet.' gives " Bets "(from beatus. blessed), a name." Skinner has "Bets, for- merly a first name, now a surname " ; and Camden's ' Remains ' under ' Surnames ' states : " By contracting or rather corrupting of Christian names, we have Bets from Beatus."

In ' Monumenta Germanise Historica ' and in Pertz there are numerous references to bishops, abbots, monks, and priests named Betto during the eighth and ninth centuries. Their names may have been derived from beatus, yet in ' Libri Confraternitatum Sancti Galli Augiensis Fabariensis ' there is mention in the ninth century, not only of sixteen monks named Betto, Bettho, or Betta, but also of eleven named " Beatus."

In 1310 Andreas Betti, a notary of Puppio, was appointed procurator for Pope Clement in a certain matter ; and Nich. Bettus was amongst the Knights of Pisa present at the making of the act of banish- ment of Robert, King of Sicily, in 1313.

Wood's ' Athenae Oxonienses ' mentions one Franciscus Bettus, a Roman living in Basle between 1574 and 1585. Poets and painters " Betti " flourished in Italy from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

Gobelinus, a Canon of St. Gudule, Brussels, writing in 1646, was of opinion that " la maison de Bette est sortie de celle de ' Bestia ' a Rome." The two Bestia, probably grand- father and grandson, lived between B.C. 121 and B.C. 43. Gobelinus avers that Athalbert was son of Berengair Bestia, a Roman gentle- man descended from Calfurnes Bestia, well known in Roman history. Athalbert was elected Bishop of Terouanne (Flanders) in 885, according to the Chronicle of Teroiianne written by Pierre d'Ouy, Chanoine de Teroii- anne et Archidiacre de Flandres, who states that Athalbert brought his two brothers from Italy : Jean, who was Prevost de Tronchines les Gand, and Aloise Bestia, who married Hafaca, daughter of Hellyn, Count of Montreuil. Athalbert died in 919. ' Monu- menta Germanise Historica ' records that

' Harl. Misc.,' ii. 596.