Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/220

 180

NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. vi. AUG. si, 1912.

jsouie half-dozen documents, though in themselves rather meagre, may be noted as pi'ecious because .of their allusion to art principally the goldsmith's art. The first refers to objects lost at the Battle of Agincourt, for which the King, " for reverence for God and Parasceve." pardons John Hargrove who was in charge of them. Among them were " a salt-cellar of gold with enamelled bands and collars and a long serpentine " ; "13 spoons of white silver stamped with little crowns " ; " 3 salt-cellars of silver gilt with covers stamped on the pommels with enamelled swans " ; and " a salt-cellar of gold of ' morask ' work garnished with two ' amatistes,' a pearl of Scotland on the isummit, and many little ' garnades,' ' rubeis,' and emeralds (viridibus)," received from the Bishop of Norwich out of the jewel-house. Again we have the King, Henry V., pledging a collar to the Mayor of London for 10,000 marks, and having it returned to him the next year at his command -enclosed in the case, although the said sum was not yet paid the said collar being " a great collar called ' pusan,' made of works of crowns .and beasts called ' antelopes ' and enamelled in white, the beasts being placed on a green terrace, the terrace garnished with two ' perles,' and a beast with one ' perle ' about the neck, and each crown with a great ' baleis ' and nine great ' perles,' and on the principal crown in front, besides the said ' baleis ' and ' perles,' two great ' dyamandes,' on the- summit." Another time the King, for 2,000 marks, pledged a " sharpe " of gold adorned with many jewels ; and again a no less costly " sword of Spain " garnished with gold and jewels "seven large sapphires and two other lesser sapphires." The coinage appears in this connexion once or twice, as in the appoint- ment of Gilbert de Brandeburgh, goldsmith, to be " sculptor of the dies of gold and silver within the Tower of London." In 1422 we get a com- mission to William Burdon, " mason," to take the requisite steps in the King's name towards " the construction and repair of the nave of Westminster Abbey."

Many pages of this volume are taken up by lists of pardons, among them four or five to an Alice or Joan who had not appeared to answer the King and So-and-so, citizen of such a place, for leaving the service of the latter before the end of the term agreed upon. This Calendar is, indeed, naturally richer than the others in . details of popular life ; witness the numerous pardons to couples tenants in chief for " inter- marrying " without the King's licence ; the grants to aged or disabled persons, e.g., " Grant for life to the King's servant John Hoggekyns, master carpenter of the King's ships, because in labouring long about them he is much shaken and deteriorated in body, of 4d. daily at the Exchequer"; and the prominence everywhere of the affairs of women. Ships and sailors figure largely in the picture ; and there are countless vivid touches relating to houses and places and their structure, to employments and tools, and other homely things. The Church throughout plays a great part, especially the domestic busi- ness of religious houses, and it is clear that the conduct of clerks in holy orders often left much to be desired. Among the pardons is that accorded to "John Prest....for having on Monday after the feast of St. Peter ad Vincula .... received John Oldecastell, late lord of Cobham, knowing him to be a heretic and to hold divers

opinions repugnant to Catholic law." The victualling of the King's household and the victualling, too, of the towns of " Hareflieu " and Calais is the subject of many commissions, divers people being appointed in different parts of the country to buy, as one document has it, " various victuals and things." Among the preparations for war is a commission issued to some score of sheriffs of counties to take feathers for making arrows and bring them to London " before Michaelmas next " ; the Eastern counties, with Somerset and Dorset, had to furnish 100,000 feathers apiece those, such as Sussex, of whom least was required had to furnish 30,000.

It is tempting to go on adding detail to detail, but our space will not permit of more. We may only, in conclusion, recommend the general reader to select some one or two of the more full and lively of these Calendars for attentive perusal, since he may gather from them in a week's diligent reading a more vivid idea of the England of his forefathers than he will get from the most brilliant pages of the professed historian.

THE Cornhill Magazine for September has at least one merit, and that, in monthly magazines, no common one. A person must be possessed of a doleful lack of humour who does not get at least three hearty laughs out of its pages. There is first Mr. C. G. Osborne's ' A London Munehausen,' Holiest of the three mines in that vein culminating in the letters sent by divers great men to the " Prince of Mantua and Montferrat " thanking him for his medals. Apart from its ludicrousness, the "Prince's" career is of considerable psychological interest. Then we have J. D. R.'s 'Prosaic Views on Poetry.' This fails to be really telling; misses points that might have been made ; stumbles often into sheer puerility. Still, it provokes amusement. And lastly, Capt. Harry Graham's 'A Splendid Failure,' a study of George Smythe, the original of Coningsby, though most of its pages are of an interest half pitiful, half irritating, has some diverting quotations from his early letters. There is also an enjoyable account of a parson's trip to the goldfields at Bullfinch, Western Aus- tralia by Dean Latham. The stories we found indifferent, though Miss Marjorie Bowen's 'The Polander 'the first of a series to be called ' God's Playthings ' is ingeniously done.

JHotfos to

Ox all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, buo as a guarantee of good faith.

SICILY. Florio and Biancafiore are characters in Boccaccio's ' II Filocapo,' as may be found in Brewer's ' Reader's Handbook,' sub ' Blanche- fleur,' and in other such works generally accessible in public libraries. There is also a " niinnesong " in which the same names occur, which may be found in the above-mentioned work sub ' Flor.

S. T. The Kitcat Club and the present where- abouts of the portraits have been discussed at 9 S. x. 188, 231, 316, 435, 471 ; xi. 13, 91.

C. T. JOHNSTON. The name Muriel has been discussed at 8 S. i. 109, 157, 194 ; and 9 S. v. 415 ; vi. 32.