Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/507

 2nd g. N<> 25., JUKE 21. '56.1

NOTES AND QUERIES.

499

last century, and the king therefore conferred upon the firm the exclusive right to print and publish a handsome quarto edition of the Vulgate.

In the recent insurrection at Naplous, the populace burnt the books which they found in the Protestant and Greek churches.

The preceding are the chief illustrations which I have met with, of the principle involved in a line which I have somewhere seen :

" 'Tis but to burn your books, the shortest way."

Doubtless many others still remain, which your learned readers may recollect and communicate.

B. H. COWPER.

CROOKED NAVES.

(2 nd S. i. 432,)

With reference to your correspondent K., who wishes for information respecting crooked naves, I beg to send the following reference, which may be of use to him.

In a small privately-printed work, called Volun- tary Contributions, edited by Lady Mary Fox, vol. ii., for the year 1836, he will find the " Frag- ment of a Tour round France ; " and as these books may not be easily procured, I will give you the extract that treats upon the crooked naves :

" Quimper has a fine old cathedral dedicated to Saint Corentin, much ornamented outside, but disfigured by small hovels and shops built up against the walls. On entering the cathedral, I was immediately struck by its singular construction. From the screen the chancel forms an angle with the nave, and for some time I was puzzled with this strange concetto, as I thought it must be, of the architects. I, however, subsequently found the following explanation of it in Freminville's Antiguites de la Bretagne, p. 294. :

" ' L'Eveque Bertrand de Bormede'e posa la premiere pierre de la cathe'drale de Quimper le 26 Juillet, 1424. Son plan offre une singularite qui du reste ne lui est pas particuliere et qui se remarque dans quelques autres Eglises de la France ; c'est que 1'axe n'en est pas droit, et que 1'extremite de 1'abside n'est pas precisement en face du portail : cet axe vers le chceur s'encline sur la gauche, y decrivant une courbure sensible. Ceci n'est pas du, comme quelques uns 1'ont cru, a un accident du terrein sur lequel est construit 1'edifice : on salt positivement que cette bizarrerie est intentione dans toutes "les Eglises oil elle se remarque, et c'est un motif religieux. Quelques architectes du moyen age voulaient faire allusion & la posi- tion incline"e que prit la tete de Jesus Christ 1'orsqu'il ex- pira sur la croix." '

" Many English cathedrals have the choir'end a little out of the straight line ; Norwich very much so."

The above is the quotation from the Fragment of a Journey. I have since seen a long description of this cathedral in the Voyage dans le Finisierre, par Cambray, p. 136., revised and augmented by E. Souvestre, and printed at Brest, 1855, where K. may find more details. VOLPONE.

A part of the choir of Norwich Cathedral is slightly out of the right line. I shall be very glad

if any of your archaeological readers who were present when this was pointed out at the meeting of the society some years ago, will advance a theory to account for the deviation. If I remem- ber rightly, the western end of the choir is that part which lies due west and east. It would be interesting to have a list of those churches at home and abroad which do not stand exactly east and west, and the amount of deviation ; noting particularly whether the west end be depressed towards the south. I quite agree with K. that this is worth inquiry ; and it concerns other matters besides church architecture. F. C. B.

Diss.

The parish church of Eastbourn, Sussex, is an instance of the crooked nave referred to by your correspondent K. K. R. A.

to

Fragments of former Greatness (2 nd S. i. 405.) MR. EDWARDS must not forget that the helmets, banners, swords, &c., till within the last fifty years so often found, and now, comparatively speaking, so seldom found in our old churches, are generally merely the remains of heraldic funerals, and not memorials of noble deeds. The helmets and weapons are often mock articles made for the purpose. The escutcheon, the helmet, the flag, the sword, spurs, gloves, and tabard of the knight or esquire, were ail required for a heraldic fu- neral, and were all suspended in the church. The wonder is that so few of these memorials have been allowed to remain. P. P.

In Kilkampton Church, Cornwall, not far from the site whereon Stowe, the magnificent mansion of Sir Bevell Grenville, was raised, there is still to be seen that warrior's gauntlet, tourists threat- ening, however, to destroy what time has spared.

T. H. P.

Time taken in writing Black-Letter (2 nd S. i. 410.) It may be interesting to give the results of a similar undertaking with that of LX., and compare them with the details given in his inter- esting communication. I amused and employed myself for a short time in the day, for some years, in restoring the leaves wanting in a fine old Sarum Missal in my possession. It is a large folio, and in excellent preservation. It belonged to Arch- bishop Chicheley, and was given by him as a part of the dowry of his niece on her marriage into the family of Darrell of Cale Hill in Kent. When I purchased it I found twenty-two leaves missing, one here and two or three there, and so on, in various parts of tlie Missal, besides the Calendar, which of course occupied six more leaves. Here, then, were fifty-six pages to be restored, and by industry and patience the task was accomplished.