Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/191

 12 s. viii. FEB. 19, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 153 And in the notes there is a reference to The Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1794, whore the writer, speaking of the preceding mild winter says : - " The wom"n 'who went a gooding (as they call it in these parts) on St. Thomas's Day might, in return for alms, have presented their benefactors with sprigs of palms and bunches of primroses." Brand lias, however, underestimated the evidence for the custom. In addition to the information contributed by corre- spondents at the last of the above references, Thiselton Dyer ('British Popular Customs,' London, Bell, 189 Ij states that " in soiu" parts of the country (Northampton- shire, Kent, Sussex, Herefordshire, Worcester- shire, <!cc.), St. Thomas's l)a> is observed by a custom called Going a Gooding. The poor people K' round the parish and call at the houses of the principal inhabitants begging money or pro- visions wherewith to celebrate the approaching festivity of Christmas." He further states that in Cheshire " the poor people go from farm to farm ' thomasm ' and generally carrying with them a bag and a^can, into which meal, flour and corn are put. Begging on this day is universal in this and the neighbouring counties." In Herefordshire a similar custom i. called "going a mumping." In Stafford- shire not only the old women and widows but in many places representatives from evrv poor family, went round for alms. In some places in this country the monej collected vas given to the clergyman and churchwardens " who distributed ^it in the vest rv on the Sunday nearest to St. Thomas's Day. The fund was called St. Thomas's Dole (see 2 S. iv. 103, 487). In Cope'; 'Hampshire Glossary ' (English Dialed ipsh Society, 1883), we find : " To go flooding is when poor old women go about on St. Thomas's Day to collect money for Christmas. The recipients are supposed to be the wives. .f holders of cottages " good men." i.e., householders (cp. St. Matt. xxiv. 43) and were called Goodwife or Goody. Hence the name. In old lists of Goodings of Bramshill, the recipients .-ire all entered ' Goody so-and-so.' " A writer in The Quarterly Review for -Inly, 1874. ]>. 32, in an article on the Isle of Wiyht, when referring to old customs then still prevailing there, says " Old women go about a-gooding on St. Thomas's Day." Halliwell ('Dictionary of Archaic and Pro- vincial Words ') has "To go a. gooding, among poor people, is to 3 about before Christmas to collect money or corn to enable them to keep the festival Kent " | and. he explains " Mumping Day " as " the 21st of December when the poor go about the country begging corn, &c., Herefordshire- See Dunkiri's ' History of Bicester,' p. 270,. j-:,l. 1816." The practice of "mumping' formerly existed at Clitheroe about Christmas time. My informant now dead was not certain of the exact day, but it was no doubt St. Thomas's Day. It seems to have been longest kept up at the residence of Mr. Jeremiah Garnet t, whose wife was a Miss Eddlestone, of an old Clitheroe family. " One condition rigidly exacted was that the recipients were not to talk, but merely knock at the door and say nothing but present themselves,, receive, and go away. On account of this the custom was known as Mumping Day." The gifts appear to have been "something very good to eat." St. Thomas's Day was often chosen as the day for the distribution of parochial or other local charities. Edwards ( ' Old Eng- lish Customs and Remarkable Charities,* London, 1842) gives cases as occurring at Horley (Oxfordshire), Xevern (Pembroke- shire)," Taynton (Oxfordshire), Alrewas (Staffordshire), Wokingham (Berks), Mel- bourne (Derbyshire), Cliffe Pyparcl (Wilts),. Slindon (Sussex), Oxford, Reading, St. Andrew Undershaft (London), Cambridge and Ottery St. Mary (Devonshire). As Edwards only made a selection of cases from the Reports of the Commissioners for inquiring into the Charities of England and! Wales, it is probable that a search through: the whole of the reports would furnish many more examples. In mediaeval tiir.es it was the practice to fix the doing of acts, or the payment of money, by reference to a Holy Day a usage still often kept up, probably without thinking about it. The four usual quarter- (U:ys originated from their being Church festivals, and in this district the days fixed' for payment of rent in old leases, were often the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of St. Martin the Bishop in winter (Nov. 11), and our tenancies of agricultural land stilF usually end, and farm servants often change their situations, on Feb. 2, which the older country people still refer to as Candlemas. So ingrained was the habit of regulating lates by Holy Days that in some Court Rolls of the Manor of Gisburn, which I recently had the opportunity of perusing,, although Parliament had abolished the use- )f the Prayer Book, together with the )bservance of Christmas and oo.any other olidays, and although the Lord of the-