Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/207

 12 S. IV. JULY, 1918.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

201

these infants, whom the Lord Jesus Christ hath vouchsafed to call to His holy baptism, to be made members of His body and of His holy congregation." Then follows an ad- juration of the ' cursed spirit." This ex- orcism was struck out of the second Prayer Book, and omitted from all subsequent revisions.

The canon to which reference is made in the quotation given by MB. PARKES in his answer following Y. T.'s is the seventy- second of the Canons of 1604, drawn up as one of the results of the Hampton Court Con- ference. Though largely more honoured in the breach than the observance, they still form part of the ecclesiastical law of the Church of England. This one enacts that

" no minister, or ministers, shall, without the licence and direction of the bishop of the diocese first obtained .... attempt upon any pretence whatsoever, either of possession or obsession, by fasting and prayer, to cast out any devil or devils, under pain of the imputation of imposture or cosenage and deposition from the ministry."

F. A. RUSSEIX. 116 Arran Road, Catford, S.E.6.

The Birmingham Weekly Post of Aug. 30, 1913, quoting from The Daily Sketch, re- corded a case of exorcism which had recently occurred at Ashfordbury Rectory, Leicester- shire. The ghost had a nasty habit of visiting certain rooms in the Rectory at the dead of night, and " ripping the blankets and other clothing from harmless sleepers." After many fmitless efforts to get rid of the uninvited guest, the rector (Rev. F. A. Gage Hall)

" at last in desperation resorted to the expedient of a solemn exorcism. Putting on a cassock and a surplice, he went to the haunted parts of the house, and with stern mien commanded the spirit to depart. Since then the ghost has not troubled the Rectory."

JOHN T. PAGE.

A form of exorcism, in Latin of a sort, was discovered many years ago, within a figure of Christ crucified, at Ingleby Arn- cliffe, Yorkshire. It is printed in Ord's ' History and Antiquities of Cleveland ' (p. 138).

There is a common belief in the shire that a Roman priest can tackle a spirit with better effect than an Anglican. Neverthe- less, the Rector of Burneston is credited with some success, in Blakeborough's ' York- shire Wit, Character, Folk-Lore, and Cus- toms ' (pp. 160, 161). Part of his rite was to read " something out of the Prayer Book," but what that something was I do not know. ST. SWITHIN.

WOMEN AS JUSTICES OF THE PEACE (12 S, iv. 11). There is a section headed ' Female' Sheriffs and Justices,' and signed " Sam Sam's Son," in Hone's ' Table Book,' n.d., p. 700. Perhaps some expert in legal antiquities can determine the value of th^ precedents there alleged.

EDWARD BENSLY.

DEVILS BLOWING HORNS OB TRUMPETS (12 S. iv. 134). The inscription referred to by MR. LE COUTEUR is on the rood-screen in Campsall Church (1J miles west of Askern, in the Barnsdale country). As given by Joseph E. Morris in ' The West Riding of Yorkshire ' (Methuen's " Little. Guides ") it is as follows :

Let fal downe thyn ne, and lift up thy hart ; Behold thy Maker on yond cros al to to[rn] ; Remember his Wondis that for the did smart, Gotyn withowut syn, and on a Virgin bor[n], All His hed percid with a crown of thorne. Alas ! man, thy hart oght to brast in too. Bewar of the Deuyl whan he blawis his hor[n], And prai thi gode aungel conne the.

Morris says :

" I copied this inscription with care, but have- added the punctuation. The letters added in square brackets are absent in the original not merely illegible ; and in one case at least I have" noted the usual mark of abbreviation (hoi?)."

Murray's ' Yorkshire ' says :

" The devil's horn frequently appears in early paintings ; and ' The Shepherd's Kalendar ' has- a poem headed ' How every Man and Woman ought to cease of their sins at the sounding of a dreadful horn.' "

Morris, after referring to ' The Shepherd's Kalendar,' which he considers perhaps* dates from the end of the fifteenth century, adds :

" We seem to discover th same idea as late? as the prologue to ' Grim the Collier of Croydon ' (? c. 1662) :

But has enough at home to do with Marian ;

Whom he so little pleases, she in scorn

Does teach his devilship to wind the horn."

It should be noted that the inscription as given in Murray varies in spelling in several' places from Morris's version; and Murray gives the last line as

And pray thy gode aungel convey the.

I have not access to a copy of ' The Shepherd's Kalendar,' but the heading to- one of its poems quoted above seems to regard " the sounding of a dreadful horn" as something that ought to lead to re- pentance, which hardly fits in with the idea of the Campsall inscription, which appears to be that when the devil blows hi& - - horn the soul is in special peril.