Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/452

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. X. DEC. 6, 1902.

allocated for the use of the earl or of mem- bers of the royal family," and distinguished as "comital or earls' lands." (Vide Trans- actions of the Devon Association, xxxiii. 606, 613.)

Mr. Reichel, indeed, now considers South Tawton to have been a fee of the Earls of Moretain, though not conferred until after the date of the Domesday census, wherein it appears not among the Moreton fees, but in the hands of William the Conqueror ("Rex habet 1 mansionem qui vocatur Taue- tona," &c.)-

There is incontestable evidence that King John -when Earl of Moretain granted the rents of four freeholds and a waste in Allingestona (i.e. Allison in South Tawton) to the priory of Canonsleigh ; and according to Dugdale (i. 470) it was as Earl of Moretain that John granted to Roger de Tony Ailrichescot in the parish of South Tawton, though already (Dugd. i. 610 and Hornby) Henry I. had bestowed the manor of Alrichscott and town of Suth Tauton on his daughter Con- stance upon her marriage to Roscelin de Bellomonte, in whose descendants the De Toneys and the Earls of Warwick it con- tinued for centuries. These items, so far as I am informed, constitute the evidence for the theory that South Tawton was a Moreton fee. It would be too complex a matter for this letter even to summarize the history of the (sometime combined) earldoms of More- tain and Cornwall, and of the English estates attached thereunto ; but the fact that these estates were constantly escheating to the Crown may explain how they came to be granted out by one or another king and divided.

Ailrichescott, alias ^Edrichescott (now Addiscott in the parish of South Tawton), was, I surmise, the then " lordship house " of the (sub) manor of East Ash, to which at the present day it pays chief rent.

This Ash, or " Aissa," as Domesday informs us, had been held freely by one Oluuric, an independent thane, but was one of the Terrse Occupatse annexed to South Taw- ton after the Conquest ; and though later Blackball appears to have been the court- house for the manor of South Tawton proper, I have wondered whether in Henry I.'s time the one at Ash may have served for the combined manors under an absentee lord.

Of Tauetona (i.e., South Tawton) itself Githa was the holder in the reign of Edward the Confessor. Did she receive it, I would ask, as mother of King Harold, or as widow of Earl Godwin in his capacity of Earl of Devon and Cornwall ?

If South Tawton had been one of the estates appurtenant to the Earldom of Corn- wall (whether or not included in the forest of Dartmoor, on which its inhabitants enjoy " Venville rights"), one could understand its overlordship (if not its actual possession) being passed on to the English Earls of Moretain, qua Earls of Cornwall.

On the other hand, in Inqs. p.m. and other formal documents the De Toneys and their successors the Earls of Warwick are constantly said to hold the manor of South Tawton of the king in chief ; and in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth we hear of H.M.'s manor of South Tawton and burg of (South) Zele ; but whether the dates coincide with periods of minority of heirs or of forfeiture to the Crown I have not yet had an opportunity of testing. I may add that at the present day the manor is not, I am informed, in any way appurtenant to the Duchy of Cornwall.

ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES.

"BOAST": ITS ETYMOLOGY. The ety- mology of boast is being discussed in the Athenaeum. Where doctors disagree learners may well step in, expose their ignor- ance, ask their questions, and propose new explorations. The ' H.E.D.' suggests some word meaning voice as a possible etymon. Mr. May hew thinks that some old Gascon word, such as boster, will turn up to stop the gap. Without searching other records of Southern French dialects, one knows of the ' Dictionnaire de la Langue Toulousaine ' appended to ' Las Obros de Pierre Goudelin,' and there " Bouts, voix," comes forth to meet us. From bouts to boost would not have been a great feat for English mouths in pro- nouncing an outlandish word. To boast is to prate, to voice one's vanity or legitimate pride. In Castilian boc6n, literally "big mouth," means " a wide-mouthed person, a braggart, a talkative boaster"; and bozdr means "to utter lofty words." Leaving the Romance dialects of those French provinces which once were English politically, and partly linguistically too, let us look at Baskland, not far from Gascony or Toulouse. There the Latin voce, or Castilian voz, was turned into votz, then botz, and is still used not only for voice, but for vote, reminding one of voices = votes in Shakespere's ' Coriolanus.' Thus in Hebrews xii. 19 rfxavfj p^/iarwv became "a la voix des paroles" in the French of J. Calvin, and " hitzen wzera" in the very excellent Baskish of J. Leicarraga, 1571. Basks of to-day pronounce this voz like bots. Bostu, poztu, means rejoiced, overjoyed, delighted, and