Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/122

 114

NOTES AND QUERIES.

XL FEB. 7, IMS.

yongemen or gromes husbandmen laborers and

artificers against the lawes made for excessive

apparell."

I am glad to find .support to my suggestion that this word needs and deserves investiga- tion as to both form and meaning. Q. V.

LATIN RIDDLE OF LEO XIII. (9 th S. xi. 48). I think the Editor has furnished the solu- tion of this enigma, and only write to say that in my copy of the Pope's verses this riddle is not included. The edition I have is "Le Poesie Latine di Papa Leone XIII. (Gioachimo Pecci), tradotta da Papiunculus (Cesario Testa). Milano : Societa Editrice Sonzogno." This was issued last year. Is the enigma a later effort ?

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

" LESING " (9 th S. xi. 28). My attention has been drawn to MR. E. S. DODGSON'S note re the use of the above word in my edition of 'Everyman.' Before I had seen his note, I had altered my mind about the use of the word. "Lesing" (or its many variants) = falsehood, lying, is of far older occurrence than Shakespeare or the translation of the Psalms, as quoted by MR. DODGSON. Cp. : I wyll not paynt to purchace prayes, Nor ope my lypps in leasynges vayne

(Ashmolean MS. 48, circ. 1550, ed. T. Wright for the Roxburghe Club, 1860, No. iii. 11. 1 and 2) and

To loke and [if] it were lesse (in the ' Battle of Otterburn ' ballad, from the Cotton MS. Cleopatra C. iv. fol. 64, stanza 25). The use is frequent throughout the ballads. But the meaning of " releasing " is also possible, and, I venture to say, makes quite as good sense, though perhaps far- fetched.

As to altering the note in subsequent editions, editors will understand why I wish to do so, publishers why I have not.

F. SIDGWICK.

"Without les" or "lesing" (in various spellings) is a phrase of common occurrence in Middle English (" buten lese " in La3amon* is earlier), meaning properly " without false- hood," but very often no more than "for certain" or "without doubt." Let one ex- ample from Barbour's 'Bruce' (vii. 77) show this:

I wat it weill, without lesyng, At that burn eschapit the king.

The following quotation from Nares's 'Glos- sary ' relates to a misinterpretation of " le- singe"as "loss":

j Line 28,150: "isseid ich )>e habbe soS buten lese." Ihere is a similar phrase in Hartshorne's ' Ancient Metrical Tales,' p. 52 ; " certan with outen lye."

Leasing. It is rather singular that Ascham, a

mistakes its meaning, and speaks of it as if it came from to leese, which means to lose."*

I have a faint recollection of " without les" having been glossed by somebody "with- out less"! F. ADAMS.

ARMS OF MARRIED WOMEN (9 th S. ix. 28, 113, 195 ; x. 194, 256, 290, 473). At the last reference but one your correspondent MER- VARID makes the following statement :

"If a woman nobilis marries a man of no birth, there will be no arms for hers to be impaled with, and she is precluded from using even her own ; also, if she is an heraldic heiress, her children cannot use her arms, unless by special grant."

I will pass by the last part of this state- ment, but I would like to ask whether it is quite certain that " if a woman nobilis marries a man of no birth " (i.e., one not entitled to arms) " she is precluded from using even her own."

She cannot, of course, impale them, as her husband has no arms with which she can do so ; but is she to be totally deprived of the use of her own paternal arms in any form?

MR. MATTHEWS has said, and I agree with him, that the husband (nobilis) of a woman (ignobilis) can bear his own arms, though he cannot impale them, as his wife has none.

May not the converse hold equally good the case of a woman (nobilis) when she marries a man (ignobilis) 1 MERVAPJD says not, but I should be glad if he would kindly refer me to some written authority for his statement, t

I am quite aware that, if so, the achieve- ment such a lady might bear might offend against the canons with regard to certainty laid down by Guillira, which I alluded to in my previous contribution on this subject, nor do I suggest that the achievement should be one of impalement with a " blank shield." One has seen, however, pedigrees and pedi- grees drawn up by officials at the Heralds' College in which, though perhaps only for the purposes of emblazonment, arms are impaled with a blank shield, it not being known, perhaps, what the name of the wife was, or whether she was entitled to coat armour.

Children of armigeri are entitled by in- heritance to bear their paternal arms in the proper way ; and is a daughter but not a son because she marries an ignobilis con-


 * See the ' Glossary ' for the two passages.

t Possibly a reference to the General Indexes of 'N. & Q.' (which I have not at hand) might give some information.