Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/322

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[128. III. MAY, 1917.

On the other hand, if not with that wealth of expression which is left intact in many churches abroad, the old churches of England, stripped arid touched with desolation as they most of them are, are still eloquent, still represent that which defies destruction and illuminates death arid grief.

We have enlarged a little upon this because, although Canon Dalton keeps strictly to his subject and, amid a most impressive mass of erudite detail, gives no space at all to mere general reflections, he has so handled his material that a vivid sense of the original inner significance of the whole accompanies the reader through his perusal, and seems to impart a vitality alike to the fabric of the church and to the statutes framed by Bishop Grandisson for his college at Ottery St. Mary.

The life of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, is one of those which, by many-sidedness and the number of external connexions, best represent and illustrate the religious and political life of England in his day. He was a man of consider- able family, and, though of Herefordshire birth, brought to his English diocese from his father's side the traditions and culture of the Continent. What he has left in the fabric of Exeter, and at Ottery St. Mary in the great collegiate church of his foundation, is, however, not more character- istic of the man himself and the trend of religious thought and practice of the time than are the statutes printed here. The copy used for this edition is a, MS. bound up with other matters in a quarto volume in the Cathedral Library at Exeter. Of this Canon Dalton gives a very close and careful description arriving at the conclusion that the contents of the quarto formed .a small collection put together to serve for "reference by its original owner, John Excestre, Canon cf Ottery and Crediton. He would need a working copy of the Ottery statutes, and it is his present editor's opinion that this Exeter copy of them is in his own hand. He died in 1448. For another MS. copy of these statutes that in the cartulary of St. Swithin's Priory at Winchester Canon Dalton claims as probable a more interesting origin and a more distinguished use. It is in an early fourteenth-century hand, and it being known that Bishop Grandisson gave to Bishop Edyndone of Winchester a copy of his Ottery St. Mary Statutes, and the dates agreeing, there seems no reason to deny that the copy we now have may actually have been that gift. Edyndone, between 1346 and 1352, was occupied in drawing up the statutes of the collegiate church of St. George at Windsor.

In order that the statutes may be fully under- stood Canon Dalton has devoted the bulk of his Introduction to a circuit, first of the exterior, "then of the interior, of the church. This has been carried out most minutely. There is not a feature of the fabric, howsoever small, which has been omitted. The heraldic and biographical details connected with the several monuments and com- memorative parts of the building are set out in great fullness. The first intentions and the modifications and afterthoughts of the founder, whether in the original design and structure of the building, or in its ornaments, have been closely worked out and carefully made plain. They have often, as in the case of the floor, to be demon- strated by indications remaining after ruthless -alterations and demolitions.

The statutes testify to the care with which Bishop Grandisson thought out every detail of the daily life of the college, as well as every detail of the service in the church, and of the care of the books, vessels, and other furniture pertaining thereto. They number seventy- seven the last one being that " de luminaribus Ecclesie." They are preceded by the Ordinacio Primaria, or Constitution of the College, and by fragments of a first draft of the statutes included in the Bishop's Episcopal Register. The latter gives occasion to a long and deeply interesting treatise thrown into the form of a foot-note on the papal pro visions. It is the most massive of all the foot-notes, but there are several that nearly rival it. Upon every article of the statutes there is what may be called without exaggeration an exhaustive commentary. The author has gener- ously set out in full the illustrative matter, which the majority of annotators would probably have indicated by references, and lovers of the Church are the more indebted to him because many of the works from which he draws are unlikely to be easily accessible to the ordinary reader. We do not know any work of the kind which has been better done, or any book which is so well calcu- lated to make living and clear to the modern student the kind of life which mediaeval England understood as that of a college of priests, and, yet again, what was included in the idea of devotion to Our Lady, which was in the very forefront of the religion of the time, and was, of all things, near to Grandisson's heart. In happier days we should hope it might be found possible to issue the statutes and annotations in a cheaper form, as a chapter in the study of the fourteenth century. Such a volume might have the advantage over the present one of being more easy to read. A criticism we would pass upon the one before us is that the long lines of small print running across the quarto page are difficult to the eye.

The photographs are delightful, but yet not perhaps quite on a level with the text some of them serving better as a general view than they dp as aids to the study of definite features of the building. We must mention the three photo- graphs of old drawings, which are of great interest, and also those of Bishop Grandisson's ivory diptych and triptych.

The Quarterly Review for April is pre-eminent] solid. Two papers M. Joseph Reinach's o ' The Origins of the Franco-German War,' an an unsigned one entitled ' The Archives of tl War ' should prove both of use and interes to readers of ' N. & Q.' ' The Travels of Sir Joh Mandeville,' by Prof. Paul Hamelius (of Liege is both scholarly and entertaining ; moreover, it worth a student's making a note of it for futa reference. Mr. T. H. S. Escott has put togeth many good things in his essay on the daily pre of the last century. Canon Vaughan writt pleasantly on the place of wild flowers in tt affection of sundry notable persons. ' The Run Prosperity of France,' by Rosamond F. Speddini is both attractive and informing, and we shoui wish for it a good measure of attention in quarte where rural affairs are decided. Mr. Alfre Fawkes discusses the Pontificate of Pius X. tl point of view being that of the Modernist. The* are the papers in which there is most of literal or academic interest. Foreign politics and socL and industrial questions, together with our ow