Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/491

s. ix. NOV. ID, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 401

NOTES:—Ducasse, 401 Scipione Maffei, Literary Journalist of the Settecento. 402 Glass-painters of York : William Peckitt, 404 Edward More Stilton Cheese, 406 The Owling Trade Person on English Pharoah as a Surname, 407. QUERIES : Legal Costume in the Seventeenth Century, 407 James II.' a Private Secretary Constance Kent and the Road Murder Seventeenth-century Military Service: Drax Family Dr. Robert Gordon, " Coul Goppagh "- Dr. Bird, American Novelist Burial Registers : St. Katha- rine's London, 408 Chinese Vase Damant Family Nicholas Grimald Barlow's ' Columbiad ' ' Verdant Green ' Thomas Linwood Strong John Vincent The House of Harcourt, 409 Captain Morton Rhys Macken " The horizon of Neolithic implements" Roberts Family Reference wanted Authors wanted, 410. REPLIES : Passing Stress. 411 Gleaning by the Poor, 412 Ruspini Tom Mostyn Pinchbeck Angier Family Astley's and Sanger's Circuses The Dance of Salome Milk. Butter and Cheese Streets Saracen or Saxon, 413 Tudor Trevor. Earl of Hereford Burial-places of Ecclesi- astics Netting Barn Farm Shock and Pain The Macca- bees : The Spartans and the Jews, 414 St. Christopher " Butter goes mad twice a year " Brothers of the Same Christian Name Authors wanted, 415. ENGLISH ARMY SLANG AS USED IN THE GREAT WAR : Comments and Criticism, 415. NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Collected Papers ' of Sir Adolphus Ward' Small Talk at Wreyland.' Notices to Correspondents. JJote*. DUCASSE. THE word " Ducasse," according to Littre (Supplement), is : Nom, en Artois et dans la Flandre francaise, des fetes de village. The word is a shortened form, or altera- tion, of the French word " dedicace," dedication, and apparently has the same meaning as " Kermesse," a word used also in French Flanders for a village fete. Littre's definition of " Kermesse " is : Nom qu'on donne en Flandre et en Hollande a une foire annuelle de chaque lieu, ou 1'on fait des processions et des mascarades, and the ' N.E.D.' gives " Kermis " as the word used in " the Low Countries, parts of Germany, &c.," to describe " a periodical (properly annual) fair, or carnival, character- ized by much noisy merrymaking." Both words have the same religious, or ecclesiastical, origin. The fete in honour of the consecration of a church is the " dedicace," or " ducasse." " Kermesse " is another form of the Flemish " kerk-messe," the Mass celebrated in remembrance of a church's consecration. There being thus no difference in their meaning, why are both words used at the same time, in the same country, or district, as they are in French Flanders to-day ? In a local newspaper dated Sept. 25, 1921, is a literary article on the ' Kermesse of Morbecque,' while immediately below is a reporter's account of this year's fete in that place which is there called the " Ducasse." The two words being used interchangeably, it would be interesting to know how it comes about that the old French word " ducasse " is apparently only of common use in that portion of France where the Flemish language is still spoken. Littre, it is true, states that the word is used in Artois, but this, I imagine, applies only to those portions of Artois bordering on the former province of Flanders. At any rate I have found neither " ducasse " nor " kermesse " at all commonly used to-day except in the northern part of the Departement du Nord. Littre gives two examples of the use of the word " ducasse " by Du Cange, one of which has reference to Valenciennes and the other to the Boulonnais, where, how- ever, the form of the word appears as " dedicasse." These are placed under the rubric ' Sixteenth Century,' whereas, if the author of the * Glossarium ' is referred to, they should, of course, be ascribed to the century following. However that may be, the word goes back at least some three hundred years. Is it older? Was it commonly in use in what is now French Flanders before the seventeenth century ? The fete itself is, of course,' a thing of very ancient date, but when was it first known in Flanders as " the Ducasse " ? Of the fete as observed at the present day, M. Henry Cochin thus writes in * Le Nord devaste '"(1920) : La fte essentielle c'est la communale, que Ton nomme d'une vieux mot frangais : la Ducasse. On ne connait pas Tame du Nord si 1'on ne com- prend pas 1'ame de la Ducasse. Elle prend des formes diverses suivant I'importance des lieux, suivant qu'on la fete a la ville ou bien au village. II ne faut pas la juger suivant le nombre ou 1'im- portance des baraques, des musiques, des jeux materiel de toutes les f tes. . . . II y a dans la fete bien autije chose. A 1'origine c'est une f6te religieuse. C'est le moment de 1'annee consacre" au culte de la famille. Les vieux parents re<joivent