Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/57

 i2s. vni. JAN. is, 1021.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 41 LONDON, JANUARY 2.5, 19S1. CONTENTS. No. 144. NOTES: Old Church 'Music at Wimborne Minster, 41 Letters of 1720 from the Low Countries and Hanover, 42 Among the Shakespeare Archives, 45 An English Ariuy List of 1740, 46 The Geophone, 47 Poor Relief Badge Loretto Female Pseudonyms used by Men Ann Vane Stories of Whistler, 48. (QUERIES : Countess Macnarnara Book of Common Prayer Alchemical M>S., 49 Education of the First Duke > Marlborough St. Thomas's Day Custom Yew- trees in Churchyards An Old Silver Charm" Conty " Leigh Hunt and Charles Dickens The Legend of Dun- fraoich Passage in Lr ckhart'* ' Life of Scott ' Nortons in Ireland, 50 The Firsr, Lord VVestbury Bishopsgate : Drawings Wanted G. P. R. James, Novelist Simeon and Drummond Campbell : Forbes : Johnston : Hankey, 51 - Light and Dark A Headpiece Tulchan Bishops Authors of Quotations Wanted, 52. REPLIES : John Thornton of Coventry and the Great Kast Window of York Minster, 52 Bottle-slider, 53 Beverly Whiting Christian Wegersloff Louis Napoleon: Poetical Works Representative County Libraries: Public and Private John Hughes of Liverpool, 1706 Hambley House, Streatham, 54 Mode of Concluding Letters Orders and Ordinances of the Hospitals, 55 ' Life in Bombay ' London Postmarks ' The Western 3Iiscellany,' 1775 and 1776 English Views by Cftnaletto Chartularies, 56 Kensington Gravel at Versailles The Glomery, 57 " To Outrun the Constable "Matthew Paris The Old Horse Guards Buildings, 58 The British in Corsica Gaspar Barlaeus Huddlings Warwickshire Sayings Gold Bowl Gift of George I. Edward Dixon, 59. NOTES ON BOOKS : Studies in Statecraft : being Chapters, Biographical and Bibliographical, mainly on the Sixteenth Century'' The Antiquaries Journal.' Notices to Correspondents. OLD CHURCH MUSIC AT WIMBORNE MINSTER. IN The Times of Saturday, Dec. 11, appeared. .a notice of William Byrd in, connection with the recent publication of his works as vols. xiv. to xvi. of the "English Madrigal School " ; and, in the following Thursday's issue, was a report of the "discovery " of some of his music in manuscript at Wimborne Minster. It was well known that there was a - quantity of old Church Music put away in boxes which were stored in the room above the vestry, which was formerly the Treasury of the Minster, but which, for nearly two hundred and fifty years, has been the apart- ment in which the celebrated Library of Chained Books has been kept. In all prob- ability these boxes had never been opened for sixty years. But, in the early spring o 1917, the Rev. Walter Slater, Minor Canon' Sacrist, and formerly Precentor of Win- chester Cathedral, kindly went carefully through the whole of the music contained in these boxes, and subsequently gave a lecture on the subject, to the members of the Gild of St. Cuthberga. But how came this music to be at Wim- borne ? The Minster, which stands on the site of an old Roman church, or temple, the remains of which still exist beneath the floor of the nave, dates back to the year 705. It was first founded by St. Cuthberga, sister of Ina, as a Benedictine nunnery ; but was destroyed by the Danes in the early part of the eleventh century ; although the slab which covered the remains of Ethelred, the elder brother of Alfred the Great, who, as the A. S. Chronicle records, vas buried there, still remains. The Minster was re- founded as a secular foundation, with a Dean and Canons, by Edw r ard the Confessor. It became a Royal Free Chapel, and so continued until the reign of Edward VI., when the College was dissolved. By letters patent of Queen Elizabeth it was refounded in 1563, and three priests and three clerks were to be provided to perform Divine service in the church, &c. From that time, now more than four hundred years ago (what- ever may have been the case previous to the dissolution of the College in 1547), there appear to have been a surpliced choir and a choral service at the Minster. The earliest existing Minute Book of the Governors dates back to 1579. On Nov. 30 of that year there is a minute recording that orders were issued by the Governors to the effect that "the servitors (i.e., 'secondaries,' or ' reading-clerks ') are not to come into the choir without their surplices ; but to go into the vestry and put them on and to come into the choir together. " On the same day it was ordered that surplices were to be made for four " querister boys." And, a month later, it was enacted that Thomas Toogood, one of the "secondaries," should have 20s., in addition to the 4Z. which he already received as wages, for teaching the chorister boys and "pricking the books needful for the choir." By a later charter, of Charles I., 1639, it was provided that there should be "four choristers, two singers and one organist, in addition to the three priests and three clerks, whom they were to assist in the services of the church." Although there had been choristers before, they were now placed legally on the foundation. .