Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/171

 12 s. vii. AUG. 14,1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 139 0n Calendar of the Close Rolls, preserved in the Public Record Office. Richard II. Vol. ii. A.D. 1381- 1385 (H.M. Stationery Office). THIS Calendar like most of the series is difficult to review, because of its very wealth of material, the Close Rolls in general, being concerned, as every student knows, with an immense variety of topics. The new volume before us may count among the best furnished. Some of the most remarkable documents have indeed, already appeared in Bymer's ' Foedera,' or in the Bolls of Parliament. We may mention as examples of these the order to the collectors in the port of Bristol to let the Pope's collector in England pack in bales and take over sea, without payment of custom, a magnificent stock of hangings, wearing apparel, cloths and other such things of which a most delectable list is given ; the memoranda concerning the delivery and keeping of the Great Seal ; the order to cause the wax about the body of King Edward I at Westminster to be renewed ; or the order instituting a commission to enquire into the matter of a great ship of Genoa called a ' carrak" which went ashore near St. Mary Fourneux but might not be counted as a wreck, her owner with the merchants and seamen sailing in her having escaped alive. Of the rest the following notes taken some- what at random out of a mass of others equally good may serve to give some idea. There are some dozen references to the Hanse towns the most interesting being a dispute arising from an incident at Yarmouth when the * Fredeland ' of Estland was anchored there in the port and, without the knowledge of any one in the ship, certain men floating carelessly by night in a boat, ran against her cable and were drowned. Under March 4, 1384 is a memorandum of great interest concerning St. Bartholomews in Smith- field, showing that the writs of the Common Bench, which were kept in a chest in that church, had many of them become rotten and unreadable owing to water from a hole in the church roof having fallen on the chest and penetrated to them by the keyholes and joints. Warlike preparations are naturally much in evidence ; thus in April, 1385 not only certain knights and squires, but also three parsons in Dorsetshire were bidden to dwell upon their respective manors and benefices, with their house- holds well-armed and furnished, there to abide until Michaelmas next to resist the King's enemies, if any should invade their parts ; and two abbesses, among other heads of religious houses, received orders to send men-at-arms and archers to their benefices for the same purpose. Shipping affairs are full of interest : a large number of trades are represented : and there is an interesting order to the Sheriff of Devon on the subject of the King's tinners and their charters. In September, 1383, Peter Gyles (Pierrekyn Gyles in the warrant, which is in French) one of the King's minstrels is sent to the convent of St. Mary, York to enjoy the maintenance " called the maintenance of the earl of Bichemond's beadsman." A study of the documents relating to London would yield innumerable good details ;} other towns we may specially mention Oxford and Cambridge are also well represented both in the number of entries and the interest of the topics. Southamp- ton, in 1385, receives an order to amend its ruling " as the king has heard by report of many that for lack of good ruling there is grievous peril of a scattering of the town." The unusual words occurring in this volume are numerous. Most are names of stuffs and wares ; we may cite as examples of others " a chevance of great sums needful for the King's use " ; "10 acres 2f deywercs of land in Coulinge " ; and an order to suffer John Fresche who was to be kept in safe custody, " to go at large within the Tower and to have his sport and conversation there." Local and personal names abound, the latter including, a somewhat higher than the average percentage of ordinary folk. " Cristoffresser- vant," " Edmundesservant " and " vykersser- vant " occur as names between the man's Christian name and his master's surname, as : Edmund Doyle. . . .and William " Edmundesservant Doyle." In matters of justice we noticed the writ of svpersedeas establishing the right of Joan, princess of Wales, to certain sums of money found at throughout the hundred and telling the quaint story of the theft of that money. The prohibition to export gold or silver is illustrated once or twice as in the case of a woman who was mistakenly arrested for having put a silver <rup with a gilt cover on board a ship to be conveyed to foreign parts. The President, preceptors and brethren of St. John of Jerusalem have notice of this prohibition sent them combined with prohibition against departing out of the realm without leave. In September 1382, a certain chaplain accused of having forged the Pope's seal was released from Newgate Gaol. An amusing order is that to the sheriff of Essex to carry at the King's cost to the King's lodging, wherever it shall be, and deliver to the treasurer of the household a fish called a " whalle " now newly cast up upon the soil of the alien priory of Mersey in the King's hand by reason of the war with France. There is mention, apropos of the theft of a seal, of the hostel of " The Swerd of the Hoope " in Fleet Street. Peetickay : an Essay toivards the Abolition of Spelling. By Wilfrid Perrett. (Cambridge. Heffer and Sons, Qs. net.) THE main problem attempted to be solved by Dr. Perrett may be said to be how to find real characters for vowels. He would eliminate diphthongs, and he would also provide a symbol for each of the great number of vowel sounds at present represented, according to a very arbitrary and unsystematic convention, by no more than five or we may say seven symbols. Dr. Perrett pro- poses to write every vowel by a straight line the quality of the vowel to be expressed by its being set obliquely, vertically or horizontally between the other letters : again by the line being long or short, and yet again by its being inserted in the word at the base, middle or top level of the consonants. There are a few additional devices, and the sum-total is presented to the eye in three pages of specimens. It will be seen that in a
 * Rawreth she having " wayf " and " stray "