Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/222

 216

NOTES AND QUERIES. rn s. in. MAR. is, 1911.

There is good reason to believe that the cere- mony of a coronation is in all essentials much as it was in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and the abbot and monks of Westminster, by the authority of the foundation charter of Edward the Confessor, had charge of the regalia and coronation robes. Therefore, the armilla used at the coronation of the Conqueror would pass into the custody of the Abbey, and was no doubt preserved as a relic identified with the name of William I.

If it had been a Fitzwilliam heirloom in the possession of the family from any period approxi- mate to the Conquest, the scarf would have been at Sprotborough, and would have devolved upon the Copleys, and one must look to the period of the City Alderman, Sir William FitzW 7 illiam, for an opportunity to acquire the scarf from ecclesiastical custody.

Is that opportunity to be found in the fact that the alderman was at one time in the train of Cardinal Wolsey, and gave his former master shelter and succour at Milton in the day of his disgrace ? Or is it to be found in the relation- ship of the Fitzwilliams to the house of Cromwell ?

At any rate, Sir William was establishing his house at a period when, by the suppression of the monasteries, many of the treasures in the custody of the religious houses were being distributed, and, granted the acquisition of a garment identified with the Conqueror, one has the essential fact upon which has been embroidered the fantastic legend recently revived.

A. C. FOX-DAVTES.

Old Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, W.C.

CHABLES DBUBY.

More than thirty years ago Prof. Freeman attacked the Fitzwilliam scarf and pedigree in his * Pedigrees and Pedigree Makers ' (Contemporary Review, xxx. 11-41), a fierce onslaught on the books for which the late Sir Bernard Burke was responsible. In consequence of Freeman's exposure, a new version of the early pedigree was patched up, and this in turn was exposed by Dr. Round in 1901 (' Studies in Peerage and Family History,' pp. 46-50). But the legend of the scarf continued to nourish, and was sarcastically dealt with in The Ancestor by the editor (Mr. Oswald Barron) on three occasions (i. 237-8 ; xi. 174-5 ; xii. 112-13). Mr. Barron attributed the scarf legend to the Elizabethan period ; perhaps an examina- tion of the relic by an expert might throw light on the date.

It is curious that the Fitzwilliams should cling to this absurd fable, as they have the sufficiently rare distinction of a genuine male descent from the twelfth century. Their founder, William Fitz Godric (of whose father Godric nothing is known), married the daughter and heiress of Robert de Lizours (or Lisoures), Lord of Sprotborough, about 1170 (Round, op. tit.). This lady, Aubreye

Lat. Albreda), also obtained the great nheritance of her stepbrother, Robert de "jacy, Lord of Pomfret, which passed to her descendants by her first husband, Richard ?itz Eustace, Baron of Halton ; whilst the

izours estates (Sprotborough, &c.) de- volved on her son by her second husband, lliam Fitz Godric, and his descendants the ?itzwilliams (Ancestor, xii. 111-17).

G. H. WHITE.

St. Cross, Harleston, Norfolk.

[MR. F. TURNER also thanked for reply.]

PAWPEB OB PAUPEB BIBD (li S. iii. 89). The earliest mention of this bird, as far as I nave been able to trace it, occurs in the Egerton MS. 1995 (fifteenth century) in the Brit. Mus. In the list of the carver's terms therein ^ given there occurs the expression " Papyr ys lowryde," and for a long time it seemed impossible to find a meaning for this. In the Harl. MS. 279, fo. 48d. (also 15th cent.), in the menu for " A Ryal ffest in ]>e ffeste at |>e weddyng of ]>e Erie of Deuynchire," in " Le iij. cours " the word

Poper " is mentioned next to " Mawlard de la Ryuer."

The next mention that I found was in "An Acte for preservacon of Grayne," cap. 15, 8 Eliz. (1566), wherein it states, iv. :

" That this Acte or any Braunche therein contayned shall not in any wise extende to give any Liberty e or Aucthoritie to any person or persons to use or exercise any meane or Engyn for the destruccion of Crowes or Rookes Chawghes or other the Vermyn aforesaid in any place or places to the Disturbance Lett or Destruccyon of the building or breeding of any kynde of Hawkes Plerons Egryttes Paupers Swannes or Shovelers," &c.

From this it is clear that the bird was a wild one, and not domesticated. In all probability it was the wild goose. The Italian name for a goose or a gosling, accord- ing to Torriano (1659 ed. of Florio), is Pdpero, and that it may be the wild goose is confirmed by the mention of it in the Harl. MS. next to the "Mawlard de la Ryuer," which was the wild duck.

The word is supposed to be an onomato- poeion, and Diefenbach compare? it with the N.Gk. Trairia, a duck. Wackernagel (' Voces Variae Animantium,' Basel, 1869) quotes from Bekker's ed. of ' Julii Pollucis Ono- masticon ' Trainrdfciv as the name for the noise of the goose. Brockett (' Glossary,' 1829) gives " Pawp, to walk in an awkward clumsy manner, " which is eminently descrip- tive of the goose's mode of progression.

I collected this information for a further contribution on ' Proper Terms ' to