Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/68

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. JULY 19, 1902.

Agnes of ye Tunstid head." Were the names of father and mother both unknown? Was she a child, or does the register call her little because small of stature ? The Christian name Ferdinando does not, so far as we know, occur in England during the Middle Ages ; in fact, it seems to have been well- nigh unknown until it was borne by Ferdinando Fairfax, the second lord, who was born in 1584. A year earlier than this we find that a Ferdinando Lang'trie, otherwise Wandie, was buried at Wigan.

A Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds in the Public Record Office. Vol. III. (Stationery Office.) THIS catalogue must be very useful not only to the topographer and genealogist, but also to the students an increasing body, we are happy to say of the names of persons and places. It does not, however, throw very much light on the history of our country in that narrow sense in which it was in former days almost exclusively regarded. As to the Christian names and surnames contained in this volume, were we to comment on them as they deserve we should require to put forth a portly volume. We cannot, however, pass over the fact that there are two Odins therein. By an undated charter Gerard Odeyn, of Coventry, grants to Robert de Ichenton, clerk, land near the church of St. Nicholas in that city; and in 47 Edward III. we find Roger de Astwyk speaking of a certain Stephen, son of Odin, as his ancestor. How far back Odin's position in the pedigree may be we have no means of knowing, but there is no reason to think that it was a very remote one. The names of towns and villages have been carefully indexed. We have not, indeed, found a single error, and only in one instance do we entertain a doubt as to the old spelling being rightly put under its modern head- ing. Field-names and the less prominent physical features of the country, though given in the body of the book, are not catalogued. As they occur on almost every page, and many of them are of great interest, we trust that some day or other a laborious person will be found who will give us an alpha- betical catalogue. Helwod and Bloodyshot were in Tunbridge in 1528 ; Shenkwynnes and Make- maydes were in Norfolk, probably in the parish of Brunham, in 1466; Ruwesand was in the -reign of Edward III. an island somewhere in Suffolk ; Lut- lumerssh was in Berkshire at about the same time ; and we find a Sortecrofte in an undated document relating to Wiltshire. As to the origin of the first two names here given it might be possible to make guesses not manifestly absurd, but the rest are quite beyond us. Grants of bondmen do not occur frequently. There is a Hertfordshire example of the time of Henry III., but the man was by no means a slave in any of the modern senses, as he held of his lord lands by villeinage tenure. There is another grant of the time of Edward III., but in his time manumissions were becoming frequent. We have one here by a Nottinghamshire knight, Sir John de Loutham, in 44 Edward HI. Sales of marriage of heirs rarely occur, but we have en- countered more than one. " Sale " is the word used in the abstracts, and is no doubt a correct rendering of the originals, but it does not convey to modern ears an absolutely correct idea, for if an heir were obstinate, the purchaser could not enforce the con- tract, for the Church held then, as now, that a marriage to be valid must have the free consent of both the parties concerned. In the reign of Richard III. the abbot and convent of Syon demised

the manor of Charlton by Stenyng to William Pellet, of that place, yeoman, for the term of seven years, along with certain customs of silver appur- tenant thereto, which were called " revesilver, watelsilver, and werkesilver," and paid by the manorial tenants. The meaning of the first is well known, but of the others doubtful. There is an indenture of the time of Edward III., written in Anglo-French, which it would seem is well worth printing in full, as it contains a list of "books, vestments, vessels, relics, &c., specified in detail," which were surrendered to a certain Geoffrey de Luy. It is not said that he was a priest. In a grant of a park at Liskeard of the time of Richard II. it is said to be within the sanctuary of that place. A park within the limits of a sanctuary is an arrange- ment we have not previously heard of.

THE leading paper in Folk-lore for June deals with ' The Letter of Toledo ' and its analogues. This particular letter, purporting to be sent by the sages and astrologers of Toledo to Pope Clement 111. and other men of importance, startled mankind by announcing that the destruction of the world was to take place in 1186. Such declarations were readily believed in during the ages of faith, since they chimed in with a large mass of tradition that had filtered down from remote times in connexion with Christian and heathen myths springing from the Antichrist legend, which had deep influence on the religious and political development of Europe. The second article of importance gives an account of the spiritualism of the Malays, whose conceptions appear to be worthy of so picturesque a people. The ' Collectanea ' and ' Correspondence,' as usual, add to the hoard of information which is gradually being collected on the subject of popular beliefs and customs among the barbaric and the super- ficially civilized.

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