Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/503

s. VIIL DEC. 20, 1913.] NOTES AN D QUERIES.

497 (11 S. viii. 408).—Hugh of Bockland appears as a Sheriff of Beds in a charter dated between 1087 and 1097; and Hugh of Beau- champ in a charter dated between 1087 and 1095 (Davis, 'Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum,' i. [1913], Nos. 395, 370).

(11 S. viii. 447).—A "rücksac" is a bag slung from the shoulders, and resting on the back the sort of bag or knapsack used by soldiers and schoolboys. The word is derived from the German "Rücken" (the back) and "Sack" or "Zak" (a bag).

Both are deformities. The correct German word would be "Rückensack" (a bag or sack carried on the back). "Rucksack" would mean a return sack. The military knapsack is called "Tornister" in German.

(11 S. viii. 329, 377, 436).—The woollen "coif" next to the head was at times tied under the chin, in the same manner as the linen coif of the serjeant-at-law. In the instance mentioned by straps may have been used to secure it.

Ancient Painted Glaus in England, 1170-1500. By Philip Nelson, M.D. (Methuen & Co.)

THIS book, in so far as its publication is indicative of popular interest in old painted glass, deserves a warm welcome, and we gladly allow that the few pages which its author devotes to an exposition of his subject are calculated to convey useful notions about it.

Dr. Nelson's work has two opposite defects : he does too little in one direction, and attempts too much in another. Out of 280 pages which the book Contains, 50 are deemed by the author sufficient for an historical account of pre-sixteenth-century glass in England, the remainder of the book being taken up with lists of old painted glass arranged in counties. We are not sure that the division of periods adopted by Dr. Nelson 12th century Byzantine, 13th ,, Early Gothic, 14th ,, Middle Gothic or Decorated, 15th ,, Late Gothic or Perpendicular has, when treating of English glass, any advantage over the older and more usual arrangement, archi- tectural as well as decorative :

Norman and Early English ... 1050-1272

Decorated 1272-1377

Perpendicular 1377-1547

It seems, too, a pity that, so far as exposition goes, the early sixteenth-century glass is left un- touched, as is also the excellent heraldic glass of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, consider- able remains of which still exist in England. It is sometimes forgotten that during the period imme- diately preceding the changes in religion roughly speaking, the first third of the sixteenth century Englishmen were very active in church building and decoration, and that much of the fragmentary Perpendicular glass still left in our churches belongs to that time. Probable instances are the Jesse windows at Llanrhaiaclr, Denbighshire, and at Margaretting, Essex, and the fragmentary glass at Claveriug, Essex, although all these are commonly ascribed to the fifteenth century.

As to the illustrations, many of them, chiefly those reproduced from tracings, are very good. The photographs of the thirteenth-century windows at Canterbury Cathedral are, however, unsatisfactory. Reproductions of tracings in black and white of single medallions with their immediate settings borders and fillings-in would have been more serviceable to the student than these direct photo- graphs of whole windows, in which the details are necessarily confused.

Dr. Nelson does well to call attention to the loss of old glass from English churches in modern times. We could supplement his observations at some length with the results of our own experience, but we will only say that it is abundantly clear that, if the remains of ancient glass still in our churches are to be made absolutely safe from abstraction, as they should be, some authority spiritual or lay, we care not which - must be called into being- or into activity, if already existing for their protec- tion. One hears much of the destruction of old glass wrought by Puritans and other zealots against so-called idolatry, but we are sure that the donors of latter-day memorial windows, the artists who have painted and fixed such windows, and the clergy and churchwardens who have allowed old glass to be removed to make room for new glass, have done, even in recent years, an amount of harm that could bid fair to rival that done by the iconoclasts.

We admit that, on the whole, a better spirit is abroad, but there is a danger that the new interest in ancient glass may result in a wide- spread mania for collecting specimens a disease of which glass-painters may almost be said to have had the monopoly hitherto. The only remedy for this is a strong and vigilant authority with- out whose consent no ancient monument old glass, brass, carved work and the rest could be removed or tampered with under pain of imprison- ment : fines would be useless. In this connexion we must bear in mind that every specimen of ancient church glass in a museum or private collec- tion has originally been removed from its setting by a process which, when thought out, can scarcely be distinguished from sacrilege : for all ancient church glass was dedicated to God's service, and was intended to serve definite spiritual ends in the place where it was set up. Of course, even as things stand, the bishops and their officials the archdeacons could do much were they to enforce, as they have the power to do, the salutary rule that nothing may be taken away or removed from its place in any church without an enabling faculty; but, so far as ancient glass is concerned, it would seem to be almost ignored at episcopal and archidiaconal visitations.