Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/201

12 s. i. MAK. 4, IBIS.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

195 explain, except the action of the heart. More than that, shortly after I had left the rooms, I met my successor in them and expressed the hope that he was comfortable. " Yes," he said, " in every way but did you ever hear a curious kind of tapping on the wall near your bedhead ? " " But," I said, " you know what that is ? " " Indeed, I do not, and cannot imagine." " That is the heart of Dr. King." Can further proof be needed of the truth of the tradition ?

I remain, my dear Provost,

Always yours sincerely,

L. B. PHELPS. The Eev. the Provost, Queen's College.

JOHN R. MAGBATH. Queen's College, Oxford.

On the north wall of Combe Florey Church, West Somerset, is a stone slab of thirteenth- -century work, with the following inscription in Lombardic letters : : ' + LE : QVER :

DAME : MAUD DE : MEKRIETE : NONAYNE : DE : CANNYNTVNE : "

Beneath is a flat stone with an open cavity of a shape and size just sufficient to hold the heart ; whatever covering there was has disappeared. Caiiyngton Priory of Bene- dictine Nuns, now a Roman Catholic Industrial School, and three miles north- west of Bridgwater, was founded in the reign of King Stephen, about 1138, by Robert de Curci. Tradition gives Cannington as the birthplace of Fair Rosamund, and avers that she received her education at its Priory. The de Merriete family lived at Hestercombe, near Taunton. The Rev. Thomas Hugo, in an interesting paper in vol. xi. of the Proceedings of the Somerset- shire Archaeological and Natural History Society, says :

" The act to which the inscription refers was exemplified only in the case of a few persons of superior rank and consequence ; and, although the Sisterhoods of that day included an abundant proportion of such, a similar instance is of the

freatest rarity. Nor did the Church ever look indly upon a practice which necessarily involved , violation of that body which had been the recipient of the Sacraments, and was consigned to the grave in sure and certain hope of a future resurrection. It would appear, however, that the members of the lady's family were more than ordinarily in favour of it, for, singularly enough, [ have found in Bishop John de Drokenesford's Register the discharge of a sentence of ex- communication passed on Sir John de Meriet for the removal of the heart from the corpse of his deceased wife, when a penance was enjoined for the same by order of Berengarius, Bishop of Tu&culum, the Pope's penitentiary, and it was further directed that the heart should be interred with the body from which it had been taken. The absolution was dated at Woky, the 28th of March, 1314." _ L, _ r

CLEMENT D. E. MALET. Stoke-Courcy Vicarage.

A modern instance of heart burial occurred in connexion with the third Marquis of Bute (1847-1900). He died on Oct. 8, 1900, at Dumfries House ; his body was laid in the chapel by the shore at Mount Stuart, and, in obedience to the instructions he had left, his heart was conveyed to Jerusalem and buried on the Mount of Olives in the presence of his family on Nov. 13 following.

ARCHIBALD SPABKE.

TAVOLABA : MOBESNET : GOUST ( ? LLIVIA) : ALLEGED SMALL REPUBLICS (12 S. i. 42, 129). The meaning of the first few lines of A. V. D. P.'s reply is not very clear :

" Tavolara certainly appears to have claims to rank with Moresnet as a microscopic territory d la San Marino and Andorra, but probably, at the best, with not a tithe of the diplomatic status and official circumstance of these."

This must mean that Moresnet and Tavolara may have some, though very little, " diplomatic status and official circum- stance." The latter term is vague.

But as far as I have been able to discover, neither Moresnet nor Tavolara has any, or could have any, diplomatic status whatever. Moresnet is, or was bef9re the war, a territory subject to a joint administration of Prussia and Belgium, pending a final settlement :

" As soon as Belgium and Prussia come to an agreement on the question, the little land will belong, without further ado, to one or the other. The municipality meanwhile owns two suzerains, neither of the countries mentioned ha.ving renounced their claim to the whole, whilst their mutual rights are duly respected and enforced." Times, Aug. 25, 1903, s.v. Gaming Tables in ' Neutral Moresnet.'

A. V. D. P.'s extract from J. W. Tyndale's ' The Island of Sardinia ' is very interesting, but at most it shows that the " king " of Tavolara was only a king pour rire. It says nothing about the alleged republic.

Neither Moresnet nor Tavolara appears to have the slightest claim to independence, or to have a vestige of diplomatic status.

Andorra and San Marino are acknowledged republics, and have been such for many centuries.

The former, under the joint protection of Fiance and the Bishop of la Seo de Urgel, has its council of twenty-four members, elected equally by the six parishes. The latter, surrounded by Italian territory, may be said to be under the protection of Italy, with which kingdom it made a treaty of friendship and commerce in 1862, which was slightly modified in 1872.

Andorra has, I believe, no diplomatic representatives, no coinage or postage