Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/610

 502

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. yn. DEC. 25, 1920.

Tf the Elopement of Lady Elizabeth had been more ancient a very active explainer of anti- quities might suppose it was confounded in popular tradition with its prototype that of her ancestress and Johnie faa the gipsy King and the name of Fa occuring in the one story and Foix in the other might have been quoted as to show an unusual perversion of a fact in the mouth of vulgar tradition. But the difference of the dates renders this impossible which is not very probable at any rate so the frail Lady Cassilis must be left in her obscurity

I have little acquaintance with Ayrshire genealogy nor do I make genealogy of any kind my pursuit, except as a branch of antiquity This must be an apology for the imperfect information herein contained as my hands which are a little sore must excuse my bad writing If I light on anything more to the" purpose I will have pleasure in transmitting it Being

Sir Your most obedient

humble Servant Abbotst'ord. 7 December, WALTER SCOTT.

1830.

By Melrose. To Robert Siminton Wilson, Esq.

VIOLET WILSON. 2 Bevington Road, Oxford-

XOLA : CNOLLARE : PULSARE.

Ix all the books that I have been able to consult, whether works on campanology or general dictionaries, the word nola (what- ever may be its real origin) is treated as meaning a " bell," a small bell in comparison with campana, which means a large one. On this point it will probably suffice to refer, without quotation, to Mr. H. B. Walters's 'Church Bells of England,' pp. 2-4, and to Du Gauge, under "Nola." But in the Winchester College Accounts of the latter half of the sixteenth century nola appears to be used, not for a bell in itself, but for some particular part of a bell or for some mechanism connected with it. Here are three examples :

" Item Edmundo fabro ferrario pro composi- tione de novo unius nole pro magna campane et pro repararida nola quarte campane, xviiis." (1572-3.)

" Item fabro ferrario pro compositione ly staple t emeiidatkme nole magne campane, vis. viiid." (1577-8.)

" Item pro nola pro parva campana ponder- ante 13 1L, pretium ponderis vid., vis. vid." (1579-80.)

I shall be glad to learn for certain the meaning of nola in these entries. The following points may be mentioned :

1. One campanologist has already advised me privately that the word here probably

indicates the clapper, especially as a clapper weighing thirteen pounds would be suitable for a parva campana ; but as he is not aware of the word having been used in that sense,, apart from our Accounts, I feel justified in submitting the matter to ' N. & Q. '

2. Some of the College bells are, and probably have always been, clock bells,, the hours and quarters, being struck and chimed upon them. This matter seems to be referred to in the first of the following entries of 1636-7, and I add the second from desire to have "ly boolinge " explained to me :

Powell pro aptando ly Hammar ad 4tam campanam. . . . ..020

Eidem pro ly boolinge the greate Bell

clapper. . . . . . . . 8 O

Is it possible that the nola of 1579-80 was the same thing as the hammer of 1636-7?

3. Nola does not seem to occur in our Accounts of the fifteenth century (I have a- fairly complete transcript of all the bell entries for that century), but " claper " or "clapyr " occurs about nine times between 1450 and 1500. In ' Promptorium Parvu- lorum ' (Camden Soc.) batittus is given as the Latin equivalent for "clapyr of a bell," but batillus is not used in the Accounts, so far as I am aware.

4. In connexion with the use of nola in, Elizabethan times, I have been referred to the late Dr. Raven's comment on enolare ('Bells of England,' p. 322), but that seems, on investigation, to be a purely imaginary verb, as I will now explain.

5. Thomas Hearne, in his ' Collection of Curious Discourses ' (1720), p. 305, quoted from an old manuscript " de officiis Osney." a passage relating to the bells of that Abbey which bore such delightful names :

" Finito Agnus Dei cnollentur Douce, Clement & Austin, & post missam per non magnum spacium pulsentur. Et notandum quod semper post magnam missam pulsetur Hauctecler, ad complete rium Gabriel et Jon."

Peck copied this passage from Hearne into his 'Desiderata Curiosa,' lib. vi., no. xxi. 21, 22 (edit. 1779, p. 225), and Dr. Raven quoted it from Peck, but un- fortunately quoted it incorrectly, convert- ing "cnollentur "into " enollentur. " Hence his comment ran :

" Here there is a plain distinction drawn between the verbs enollare and pulsare, the former denoting the tolling by ' clocking,' and the latter a blow from outside the bell at least so it seems to me."