Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/600

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vn. DEO. is, 1020.

to mislead, should not be used in literature" Shakespeare, however, was scrupulous in his frequent use of the term in question :

Beatrice. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well ; but civil, Count, civil as an orange, and somewhat of that jealous complexion.

Don Pedro. 1'faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true. (' Much Ado,' II. i.)

"He hath achieved a maid," says Cassio about Desdemona, "one that excels the quirks of blazoning pens " ('Othello,' ii. 1). Here the reference is to literary description, whereas the Ghost in ' Hamlet ' means oral expression :

But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood. But this eternal olazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood. (' Hamlet,' I. v.)

Ko doubt recent popular usage has caused the term to be understood loosely as sig- nifying arms depicted ; but Samuel Johnson lent himself to no such slip -shod. He gave the meaning of "blazon" as "to explain in proper terms the figures on. ensigns armorial," and quoted Addison in illustra- tion : " King Edward gave to them the coat of arms, which I am not herald enough to blazon into English."

HERBERT MAXWELL.

In England the following may be the earliest examples, each bearing heraldic devices upon his shield : stone slab to Sir John de Bitton, 1227, in Bitton Church ; brass to Sir John D'Aubernon, 1277, in Stoke Dabernon Church (on lance pennon as well as shields) : marble effigy of a cross- legged knight, c. 1300, in Whatton Church.

Geoffery de Magnaville, deceased 1144, is represented in the Temple Church with coat of arms on shield, probably early thirteenth century work.

Some of the German incised slabs may be as early (vide Creeny's 'Incised Slabs ').

WALTER E. GAWTKORP.

36 Long Acre, W.C.2.

QUARR ABBEY : FOUNDATION CHARTER (12 S. vii. 332, 377, 418, 456). In spite o the array of authorities quoted by DR WHITEHEAD, I still think, that, strictly speaking, Quarr was not one of the earliesi Cistercians houses in England. There seems to be no doubt that when it was founded in 1132 it was colonized by monks from th Monastery of Savigny in Normandy. The order of Savigny was founded in 1112 by Vital de Mortain, one of the disciples of Robert d'Arbissel, founder of the order of

'ontevraud. The rule, like the Cistercian,. as an adaptation of the Benedictine rule. St. Vital died in 1122, and it was under Serlo, fourth Abbot of Savigny, that the urrender to Citeaux took place. The eason for thjs was apparently the in- ubordination of his abbots. And it was: ealized that surrender to a more powerful >rganization was the only means of pre- serving the order. This transaction was the- chief business of the great chapter of Citeaux at which Eugenius III. was present, >y his own wish, "quasi unus ex eis." This resulted in the bull, "Pax Ecclesiae," ssued Sept, 19, 1147, confirmed Oct. 21, 1140. By this Bull the Order of Savigny was amalgamated with the Cistercian Order- There were thirteen English monasteries. of the Order of Savigny, of which Furness Abbey was the earliest and chief. Among; them was Quarr Abbey. Furness Abbey strenuously resisted the change, but in a Bull dated Apr. 10, 1148, it is included amongst the abbeys which had surrendered. It is well known that a long and bitter struggle for supremacy, on the score of priority, existed between the Abbeys of Waverley and Furness. We find in the ' Annals of Waverley ' under the date* 1232 :

" Quaestio prioratus inter Abbatem de Waurleia^ et abbatem de Furnesio terminatur hoc modo. Videlicet, quod abbas de Eurnesio prioratum in tota Generatione Elemosinae in Anglia, et^ in Generatione Saviniaci in Anglia tantum. Abbas autem Waurleia habeat prioratum ubique tarn in congregationibus abbatum, quae fuerint per Angliam, quam alias per universum ordinem."

Without doubt Furness was founded before Waverley. But the dispute was finally decided "substantially in favour of Waverley, because Waverley was a Cis- tercian foundation from the first, but Furness was not. This being so, my humble opinion is, that if the chief house- of the Order of Savigny in England, in spite of the earlier date of its foundation, has to take up a lower position than the first house of the Cistercian Order, then the other houses of the same Order must only be counted as Cistercian houses from the- date when they were admitted into that Order. This was in 1147. The correct day of the foundation of a Cistercian house was that on which (a) the "conventus," i.e., the- abbot and twelve brethren, took possession, of a house ready prepared for them ; (b) the convent having taken possession of a site destined for a monastery, settled down.