Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/184

 146 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.vm. FEB. 10,1021. The mid-Lent fete, known in Hazebrouck as " Den Graef van Half Vasten," has a very distinct local interest, its origin going back 1;o the beginnings of the town, and it may be said to combine the ancient "Fete >du Lievre " (den Haeze Feste) with the later " Fete des Koix." At the Fete du Lievre a hare was let loose in the market-place, and was chased by the inhabitants, but in course of time the amusement degenerated, and, having become a source of animosities and disturbances, the fete was suppressed in 1539. The custom of distributing nuts -among the people at the mid-Lent festival, which gives its name to the Fete des Xoix, is said to have originated in an incident of the feudal period when a Lord fair in mid-Lent for which the inhabitants had petitioned. The townspeople replied 'by causing a mannequin in the semblance of their Seigneur to be paraded on horse- back through the streets on the day in question, accompanied by a servant who ~threw nuts among the crowd derisively to symbolize their lord's largesse. Held annu- ally the spectacle attracted the inhabitants of the whole district to Hazebrouck and in time the fete gained for the town the advan- tages which had been sought and refused. Such in brief is the story of the origin of the Fete des Noix. It is told in some detail in an interesting article by M. Joseph Pattein, of Hazebrouck, in Le Beffroi de Flandre, Feb. 15, 1920. Discontinued for five years -during the war, the fete was again cele- brated, though shorn of some of its former pageantry, on Mar. 15, 1920. The effigy of the feudal lord led on horseback through the streets amidst the jeers of the towns people will naturally recall to Lancashire readers the somewhat analogous procession of the Black Knight at Ashton-uncler-Lyne, which takes place on Whit-Monday. " At Hazebrouck the procession of the manne- quin took on a new significance in 1602 as the result of a local incident in that year the details of which are too long to repeat here. The distribution of nuts was dis- coritriued in 1782, but was revived ten yea-s later, when the municipality decided (November, 1792) that " pour ne plus donner un nom d'ancien esclavage ou de feodalit^ a cette fete, elle sera des a present de"nommee ' la fete des Sans-Culottes ' et le boniet de la liberte sera arbore" en signe de cette iibert6 conquise." Under varying forms the fete, with its dis- tribution of nuts, continued to be held till its interruption by the war. At its resump- tion in 1920 : " la distribution des noix fut abondante. Le senieur de largesse les jetaieiit a tour de bras dans toutes les directions. On les recueillait avidement pour les emporter au loin ou les en- voyer aux rnembres disperses des families." Though nothing of the ancient Haeze Feste finds place in the fete of to-day, it may be considered as the embryo from which the present festival emerged. For a long time the two fetes existed side by side, then one disappeared and the other held the field alone. The hare, in the words of M. Pattein, has now taken refuge in the arms of the town, where it appears on a golden escutcheon held by the legendary Lion of Flanders, or in heraldic language Argent, a lion salient sable holding an escutcheon or, thereon a hare courant bend- wise proper. F. H. CHEETHAM. AMONG THE SHAKESPEARE ARCHIVES. (See ante, pp. 23, 45, 66, S3, 124.) MASTER JOHN BRETCHGIRDLE. While John Shakespeare was administering his father's affairs at Snitterfield a Protestant vicar was instituted at Stratford in succession to Roger Dyos. John Bretchgirdle was a native of Baguley in Cheshire and was educated in that nest of heresy, the home of the "Christian Brothers," Christchurch, Oxford. He and a fellow-student, who was probably also a fellow-countryman, John Sankey, supplicated for their B.A. in Mar. 1544, were admitted on the same day, Apr. 7, and after being twice dispensed in the Michaelmas term, determined together in 1 545, Bretchgirdle took his M. A. on July 1 1 , 1546, and early in King Edward's reign returned to his native country as perpetual curate of Witt on cum Twenbrooke near Ncrthwich. At Witton he had a school, attended by boys from Northwieh, among whom was a gifted and loved scholar named John Brownsword (pronounced BrowrCs word}. In 1550 or 1551 he obtained for his home and school, from Sir Thomas Venables of Kinderton, the lease of a messuage, a croft and half an acre of land, " lying and adjoining the Chapel-yard," and entering on the premises he "occupied and enjoyed the same by the space of seven years," during which term he " did upon his own costs and charges newly erect a chamber, and also amended and repaired divers other houses
 * >f Hazebrouck refused to grant the town a