Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/319

 9* 8. XL APRIL 18, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Monday morning, when, going to see whether her paste had risen so as to run over, she found her bread baked without material fire It is sad to relate that when the first excite- ment caused by the preaching of Abbot Eustace had passed away, the people soon reverted to their old Saturday and Sunday- breaking practices. Giraldus Cambrensis also refers to the preaching of Eustace, and says that when he came to Keal, in Lincoln- shire, the people generally listened to him and followed his teaching, but that one wretched woman derided him and went on with servile work on Saturday afternoon, winding her thread into balls as before. However, both her hands were suddenly con- tracted, and she fell to the earth as one with- out life or sense. Her neighbours brought the matter before the archdeacon, and it was proclaimed not only in the churches, but in the markets and other public assemblies, as a warning to the whole county. There is a good account of the mission of Eustace in 'Fasti Ebor.,' i. 275. It is remarkable that all these stories relate to Saturday afternoon rather than to Sunday itself. There are pro- bably many more of the same kind, bearing witness to the principle of Sunday observance. In connexion with these Sunday stories, I may mention that on 2 September, 1892, I saw in the church at Tingstade, in the island of Gotland, in the Baltic, two large rounded pebbles, kept in an aumbry in the sanctuary. The tradition is that two women were baking on a Christmas Eve, and their bread was turned into stone.

What may be termed the Sabbatization of the Lord's Day probably received an impulse in that Judaizing movement of the twelfth century which resulted in the rationale of the bishop, the seven-branched candlestick in the choir, the fringing of vest- ments with bells and pomegranates, four- square altars, absence of steps, &c. On this subject see the introduction, by J. W. L., to Legg and Hope's 'Inventories of Christ- church, Canterbury.' The term "Sabbath," as applied to the Lord's Day itself, is said to be first found in Petrus Alfonsus, who, writing figuratively in the twelfth century, says,

"Dies Dominica Christianorum Sabbatum

est." "Sabbatum" as applied to Saturday, not to Sunday, survives to this day in the Roman service-books, and in the Italian " Sabbato " and French " Samedi '' (" Sabbati dies"). The reason seems to be that the Saturday afternoon was held to be as holy as the Sunday itself, but was more likely to be disregarded, as indeed it is at present.

After the observance of the original Sab-

bath had ceased among Christian people, it was still felt that the fourth commandment required the keeping of the Church's holy days, and in that sense we in the Church of England pray God to " incline our hearts to keep this law." And in all times the ob- servance of Sunday has been greatly pro- moted by the retention in the Church of the fourth commandment But to say that the Sabbath has ever been shifted from the seventh day to the first is nonsense. Both were observed in the beginning, but later the Lord's Day only. The Saturday afternoons referred to above, of which the present half-holiday is a survival, were ob- served not as the end of the Sabbath, but as the beginning of the Sunday. And the Sunday has always been observed more or less like the Sabbath i e., as a day of rest, of devotion, and of special religious worship. Such preaching as that of the Abbot Eustace in 1201, or the Sabbatarianism of the Puritans of later times, however mixed up with error or exaggeration, has, at any rate, borne wit- ness against such irreligious neglect or pro- fanation of the Lord's Day as could never have been sanctioned by the Church at any time. J. T. F.

Durham.

With reference to the communication by A. R. Y. under this title, there is a series of about half a dozen serrated peaks, many yards apart, in the island of Arran, Bute- shire, known as Camus na Caillach (the Old Wife's Leap), the old lady being supposed to jump from one peak to the other. They are on the skyline, about 1,500 ft. high.

JOHN S. RANKEN.

Barnet.

'The Old Wives Tale/ by George Peele (1558-98), wit, poet, and dramatist, was printed in 1595 by John Danter. Dr. Brewer
 * n his 'Reader's Handbook' says that Milton's

' Comus ' is indebted to this comedy.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

LADY WHITMORE (9 th S. x. 268, 318, 395, 450). I am glad to learn from Z., ante, 158, that the new 'Catalogue of the Hampton Court Pictures ' states that the Dor trait of Lady Whitmore was engraved mder another name in 1780 ; but I doubt if Many authorities still hold to the opinion
 * his assertion altogether solves the enigma.
 * hat the picture represents the Countess of

Southesk. Mr. Gordon Goodwin, for instance, n his new edition of Grammont's 'Memoirs,' gives a photogravure of the picture, and