Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/39

 u&v.jAy.i3.i9i2.j NOTES AND QUERIES.

there has been but little " modernizing " for many years. It is understood that the two wings of the house are to be restored And devoted to their former uses. The fourteenth-century hall, with its superb roofing and timbers, may well be brought back to its old design ; and if the more modern masonry be judiciously replaced with the proper stone, and the repairs be carefully kept in hand, this fine monu- ment of the past may well be looked upon as a gem of domestic architecture. The Wordsworth cedar happily remains in fine preservation by the moat, and is in excellent accordance with the placid sur- roundings. W. H. QUARRELL.

(SJmros.

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.

FAMILIES : DURATION IN MALE LINE. MR. PAGE hints that it was a judg- ment on the Bradshaws that the regicide's family wholly died out in the male line in the course of a century (see 11 S. iv. 344, 456).

Surely this is not at all remarkable. It would be interesting if genealogists would tell us what is the usual duration of a family in the male line, and which is the family that has undoubted -proofs of the longest descent in the male line. I believe it to be much shorter than most people think. The custom for the impoverished heir of an old estate to marry an heiress often has the effect of shortening pedigrees.

WILLIAM BULL.

GRISE : GREY : BADGER. In turning over the pages of John Watson's ' History of the Earls of Warrenne and Surrey ' lately, my attention was caught by a discussion (p. 297) of the meaning of the word gris or grys, occurring in descriptions of dress, such as " furratas de gris " ; and the rather vague definition of it as " some, fur " sent me to the ' N.E.D.,' which, I find, offers the scarcely more explicit signification, " A kind of grey fur," with the derivation from the French adjective gris = grey, the earliest instance quoted being from the ' Cursor Mundi ' (1300): " Riche robe wit veir & grise."

I had always supposed my own interpreta- tion of the word to be the established one, and may it not, after all, be right namely,

that gris was the Norman-French rendering of the old name in England of the badger the " grey " ? An article on ' The Destruc- tion of Vermin in Rural Parishes,' by the late Dr. T. N. Brushfield, in Transactions of the Devon Association, vol xxix. p. 310, cites many examples from parish registers and other documents of the use of the word "gray" and its variants "grea" and "gree," with plural " greas," giving the compounds " greashead," " grayes hedes," and " graies hed," e.g., East Budleigh Accounts, 1664 : " To William Burch for a grays head, 1 s O d ," the reward having been fixed by the Act of 8 Eliz., " for the heads of every Foxe or Gray, xij d ."

Would the fur of the badger in mediaeval times have been accounted a worthy garni- ture for a " riche robe " ?

ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES.

SKATING IN THE MIDDLE AGES. In ' Salad for the Solitary,' by an Epicure (F. Sanders), Bentley, 1853, it is stated in an essay, 'Pastimes and Sports' (p. 113): "This diversion [skating] is mentioned by a monkish writer as far back as 1170." Does this refer to the well-known allusion to bone skates by Fitzstephen, translated by Stow ? And will any one be kind enough to give me any other early references to skating, and the first introduction of steel skates in Holland, France, Germany, or England ? A. FORBES SIEVEKING.

'GiL BLAS.' Many years ago I picked up at a second-hand bookstall six small volumes (Italian), bound in 'leather and in good con- dition, entitled

" Gil Bias di Santillano | Storia Galante | Tratta dall' Idioma Francese | nell Italiano j Dal Dottor | D. Giulio Monti | canonico Bolognese I Edizione quarta | [Illustration, trade-mark.] | In Venezia SIDCCL. | Pre.sso Antonio Bortoli | Con Licenzo de' Superior!, e Privilegio." Until recently the books remained unread* lost sight of in a bookcase, but now I find to my intense surprise that the first four volumes embrace the whole of Le Sage's ' History ' as published, finishing up with the marriage of Gil Bias, while the remaining two form a continuation of the ' History,' Gil Bias having subsequently left his home and disappeared. His nephew then sets forth to find him, and, after many adventures and meetings with people who relate their adventures on the lines of the well-known published work, he and Gil Bias's faithful servant eventually find him as a hermit.

My object in writing is to ask whether any one is aware of a publication of Le