Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/360

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. Nov. 1,1902.

some old Dutch burial-ground may contain the mortal remains of Lieut. C. M. Watson.

FRANK PENNY. 34, Woodville Road, Baling.

WINE A RARE ARTICLE (9 th S. x. 209). Wine in England has, probably from the time of the Roman occupation, been a com- modity so scarce as to place it out of the reach of the less fortunate classes, who, if they obtained it at all, must have done so through the apothecary or from the monas- teries, principally as a cordial. But even the monks abandoned the cultivation of the vine long before their suppression. Fitz Stephen, in his ' Description of the City of London ' in the twelfth century, must allude to the traffic in imported Gallic wines when he speaks of " the wine sold in ships and vaults on the bank of the Thames," at which time it may be inferred that the monks, if they had a superfluous stock of grape wine, would have sent some of it to London. But the acquisi- tion of Guienne in 1152 probably led to an interchange of commodities between France and England, and though the trade may have existed in a desultory way both before and after the Norman Conquest, its estab- lishment at this time with Bordeaux, the capital of the ancient province of Guienne, was an accomplished fact. William of Malmesbury in his ' De Pontificibus ' says that the Vale of Gloucester still produced as good wine as many of the provinces of France that is in the twelfth century. According to an ordinance, 5 Edward III., A.D. 1331,

" by reason of the multitude of the kinds of wine now brought to the said city, it was agreed and ordered by the same that the gallon of the best Gascon wine shall be sold from henceforth at id., and the gallon of Rhenish wine at 8d. ; and that all taverners of the City shall keep the doors of their taverns and of their cellars open, that so the buyers of their wines may be able to see where their wines are drawn."

The taverner who sold bad wine was made to drink a pint of it, and the rest was poured over his head (see Riley's ' Memorials of the City of London,' 1868, p. 181 et seg.). In the ' Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarque,' by the Abbe de Sade (1764. tome i. liv. ii. p. 337), is an extract from one of the poet's own letters to a friend, A.D. 1337, stating that "in England they drink nothing but beer and cider. Ine drink of Flanders is hydromel ; and as wine cannot be sent to those countries but at great expense, few persons can afford to drink it." In the fifteenth century a pint of wine might be had in London for a penny, with bread gratis (Lydgate's ' London Lackpenny,' temp.

xl 6 11 V JL* ),

The best answer to DR. M. D. DAVIS'S query is probably to be found in Dr. Alex- ander Henderson's admirable ' History of Ancient and Modern Wines' (1824), wherein the author sifts the learned disquisitions contributed to Archceologia (vol. iii.) on the subject by Dr. Samuel Pegge and the Hon. Dailies Barrington, and where it is stated that in the thirteenth century the importa- tions of wine would appear to have increased, for most of the chroniclers ascribe the neglect of the English vineyards to " that fondness for French wines which came upon us." The Crusaders are also believed by Dr. Hender- son to have been responsible for the intro- duction of a taste for the sweet wines of Italy and Greece (ch. xi.). There is one more consideration to be taken into account. The decadence of the wine-producing industry in England about this time is thought by M. Arago, of the French Institute, to have been really due to changes in the climate. Similar changes of climate, he says, took place in France, where at Macon, in the Department of the Saone and Loire (ancient Burgundy), wine in 1553 was made of the Muscat grape, which will not now ripen there. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

GRISSARD (9 th S. x. 227). Grisard (the correct spelling) is a French word, being the popular name cf the goe'land, sea-gull. Cot- grave : " Grisard a Sea-cob or sea-Gull."

French though it is, it is entered in 'Rees's Cyclopaedia,' and is described in the article on Lams ncevius, its scientific name (see also Pennant, 'British Zoology,' ed. 1812, ii. 182). For the classification of the gulls with refer- ence to this species see Mr. Howard Saunders's paper ' On the Larinse ' in the 1878 volume of ^Proceedings of the Zoological Society, pp. 163, 179, 200. Grisard Is in the ' N.E.D.,' but not with this meaning ; and, it may be remarked, it is also the popular name across Channel for the badger. F. ADAMS.

If EMERITUS will turn togrisard in a French dictionary he will find that it means (inter alia) grey gull. Faguet's crew were doubtless, like himself, Frenchmen. Such a word seems outside the scope of an English dictionary.

Q. V.

BLACK FAST (9 th S. x. 248). This phrase is commonly used by English Catholics to denote the three severest fast-days of the year viz., Christmas Eve, Ash Wednesday, and Good Friday. JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

PORTRAIT BY ZURBARAN (9 th S. x. 207). Is Z. correct in referring to Lady Weld as