Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/18

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.NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. v. JAN. e, 1912.

LATIN PHRASE FOR " MISTLETOE FOB THE NEW YEAR." We sadly want references for some of the statements made at US. iv. 502. The general account of the gathering of the mistletoe by the Druids is to be found in Pliny, ' Nat. Hist.,' bk. xvi. chap, xliv., near the end.

But I do not find there the statement that " the attendant youths distributed it to the people as a holy thing, crying, ' The mistletoe for the New Year.' '

I have strong reasons for supposing that the phrase " The mistletoe for the New Year " is comparatively modern, certainly later than 1300, and that no phrase corre- sponding to it ever existed in Latin. My query is, accordingly, What is the alleged authority for it, and what is the Latin for it ?

I hope the dozen or twenty correspondents who are ready to give me the bogus French equivalents will kindly refrain from doing so. That is not my question at all. I am asking for the Latin phrase and the Latin authority, and before A.D. 1300. If there is a single atom of truth in the story, we are entitled to expect such evidence.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, "UNUS DE

CONSORTIO MEDII TEMPLI."

(11 S. iv. 347, 414, 490.)

IN reference to this query, which has only just been brought to my notice, though I find it has already been dealt with by my successor, MR. BEBWELL, at the second reference, I would ask, as the writer of the statement out of which it arose ('Notable Middle Templars,' p. 78), to be permitted, though late in the day, to make some reply.

Your querist, MEDIO-TBMPLABIUS, seems to doubt my inference, from the above description of Sir Francis Drake that he was a member of the Middle Temple, remind- ing us, truly, that the word used to denote that community was not "Consortium," but Societas," and, to designate a single member, not " consors," but " socius." But, though this may have been the case generally, or, indeed, universally, as he says throughout the ' Records,' may not an exception have been made, I would ask, and appropriately made, on this particular and

very remarkable festive occasion, when the famous sailor, fresh from the sea, came to " consort " with his old friends and, so to speak, " messmates " a term he would appreciate in the ancient (but then new- built) Hall ? If not, and if " Consortium " be not here a synonym for " Societas," what, I ask, can it mean ? As for its use in the plural, that certainly presents a difficulty, but I would suggest that it may have a subtle reference to the custom or method (still observed) of dining in messes " fellow- ships " (consortia) and this suggestion seems to me to derive confirmation from the expression " omnibus de consortiis in aula praesentibus," which I think may be translated as meaning that " all the tables were full up," as they naturally would be on such an auspicious occasion.

I am ready to admit, however, that there is a good deal of speculation in this attempted interpretation of the interesting " memo- randum " which puzzles your querist, and it may be that this is the only instance of " consortium " being used, either in the singular or the plural, for the conventional " Societas" ; but the occasion was peculiar, and the writer of the "report" (as "the memorandum " may be called) may be excused some deviation from strict form and some play of fancy in drawing it up, fresh, as he evidently \vas, from the festivi- ties he was recording.

That Sir Francis Drake, however, was a member ("socius" or "consors") of the Middle Temple I think there can be no doubt elected probably honoris caurd, like so many other celebrities, to that Inn. That his name does not appear on the Register may probably be accounted for by his being absent perhaps at sea at the time of his election, and no note being entered of it. The Middle Temple Records are not without omissions.

As regards the afterwards famous Ad- miral's provisional " admission " to the Inner Temple, I suppose there can be no denying that fact in the face of the entry to that effect on the Register of that Inn in 1582; but, if he afterwards paid his fine and proceeded to " membership," of which Master Inderwick admits there is no record, the question why, after his "prosperous" return from his voyage in 1586, he was not entertained and feted there, instead of by the " consortia generosorum " of the Middle Temple, is, it seems to me, a very difficult one to answer. JOHN HTJTCHINSON

(late Librarian to the M.T.).

Dullatur House, Hereford.