Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/205

 12 s. vi. MAY i,i92o.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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"We will not allow you to neglect your private affairs any longer." It was useless. They had to let him go home to his favourite occupation.

The story told in the Talmud about Hillel is more interesting. It is humanism pure and perfect, and illustrates the broad- mindedness of the Rabbis in a superlative degree. When Hillel Hahzohkein (the elder) was quite a young and unknown man, he was a market porter. From his scanty earnings he paid the doorkeeper of the Beth Hamid- rash (College) where Schemahya and Ab- talion lectured to crowded audiences. Ac- cording to the Talmud, &c., one Friday afternoon, poor Hillel was xmable to pay the doorkeeper a " prootah " (penny) for the privilege of listening to the discourses. It was a boisterous, snowy day, and the market was badly attended. Not to be outdone, Hillel clambered up to the roof. Pressing his ear to the skylight, he be- came so absorbed that he forgot all about the raging elements. Hours afterwards when the Sabbath had begun, Sche- mahya remarked to his colleague "Brother Abtalion, usually at this hour of the day the room is flooded with light. To-day it is quite dark. I should say it is quite as dismal and as cloudy outside." Glancing up at the skylight, they observed what seemed to be the prostrate figure of a man. Proceeding to investigate the matter, they found Hillel lying on the roof, in an unconscious condi- tion, covered in a mantle of snow. Lifting the poor boy gently to the ground, they carried him indoors, gave him a hot bath and supper and set him by the stove to recuperate. In a later age, Rabbis who heard this legend of Hillel, made this shrewd remark: "He was indeed worth breaking the Sabbath for " in order to rescue him from an early grave to become one of the assets of Judaism and of humanity at large.

M. L. R. BRESLAB. Percy House, South Hackney, E.9.

^ THOMAS BASCHURCH, WINCHESTER SCHOLAB. In Kirby's ' Winchester Scholars, at p. 91, under the year 1489, is this entry : "Baschyrch, Thomas, Bristol. Sell. N.C. B.A. Fell. 1495-8. R. of St. Leonard, Eastcheap. lounder of a Preb. at Llaudaff."

He was in fact Rector of St. Leonard's, Eastcheap, London, from May 3, 1520, to his death which occurred in or just before January, 1537/8 (Hennessy, ' Novum Reper- torium,' p. 81). In October, 1515, Thomas

Baschurch, Rector of Stoke Newingtoji.* exchanged that living with one Edward Hyggins for the Rectory oi Newchurch in Romney Marsh ; but he resigned New- church in or before January 1522/3 (' Arch- aeologia Cantiana,' xiii. 465). Neither Bas- church nor Hyggins are mentioned by Hennessy as Rectors of Stoke Newington (at p. 420), there being a gap between 1445 and 1531.

Thomas Baschurch was collated to the Rectory of Chevening, near Sevenoaks by Archbishop Warham at Knole, Jan. 24,. 1522/3 ('Arch. Cant.,' xvi. 123); but on April 30, 1533, he wrote to Cromwell that he was " sore sick and likely to die," and on July 23 in the same year Cranmer wrote to- the Duchess of Norfolk (letter printed ' Cranmer' s Works ' (Parker Soc.), vol. ii.. pp. 254-5) that Mr. Baschurch had changed his mind and resigned the benefice to another (' Letters and Papers Henry VIII.,* vol. vi. nos. 404 and 885).

On May 18, 1525, Richard Robynson was presented to the church of Olderkerke - in the marches of Calais vice Thomas Bas- church resigned (' L. and P. Hen. VIII.,' vol. iv., no. 1377, gr. 8) ; but Baschurch seems to have recovered this living, for we find him in 1532 and 1533 quarrelling about it with John Benolt, the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commissary at Calais, and; brother to Thomas Benolt, Clarencieux. King-at-arms (as to whom see the ' D.N.B.'). The facts seem to be that on May 11, 1532, John Benolt resigned the living of Moor Monkton, near York, in favour of Lawrence- Stubbs, who resigned the living of North, Cerney, Gloucestershire in favour of Thomas Baschurch, who resigned the living of. Olderkerke in favour of John Benolt. Baschurch, however, was much dissatisfied with the terms of the exchange. (See- ' L. and P. Hen. VIII.,' vol. v., nos. 1283,. 1540 ; vol. vi., nos, 77, 153, 154, 196, gr. 3L and 32.) Benolt did not obtain possession' of Olderkerke till the middle of November, 1532, and even then the quarrel continued.. Baschurch resigned North Cerney on or before May 10, 1533.

Although Baschurch, as we have seen,, had resigned Chevening in July, 1533, he- still continued to reside there and not in the- City of London. On Jan. 11, 1535/6 Cranmer wrote to Henry VIII. a letter (calendared ' L. and P. Hen. VIII.,' vol. x., no. 113; and printed in full 'Cranmer Works ' (Parker Soc.), vol. ii., pp. 319-320, and partially in ' Southey's Commonplace Book,' 1st Series, pp. 252-3), which is solely