Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/498

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. n. DEC. 17, '98.

does not appear to have ever proceeded to his Masters degree, vacated iine living in 1691 "per institutionem in aliud beneficium." I should be glad to know what was the other benefice to which he was appointed.

W. D. SWEETING. Maxey, Market Deeping.

'MARTYRDOM OF MAN.' In Reade's 'Mar- tyrdom of Man' (1872), pp. 252-3, occurs the following passage :

" A king of Arabia Felix, in the fourth century, received an embassy from the Byzantine emperor with a request that Christians might be allowed to settle in his kingdom, and also that he would make Christianity the religion of the state. He assented to the first proposition ; with reference to the second, he replied, ' I reign over men's bodies, not over their opinions. I exact from my subjects obedience to the government ; as to their religious doctrine, the judge of that is the great Creator.'"

Who was the Arabian king, and where can his reply be found ] XL.

HERALDIC. Can any one kindly identify for me the following shield of arms? It occurs on an old china cup, and has already baffled the re- searchof more than one learned antiquary : Or, three slipped trefoils in pale vert between two pallets wavy sable; in the dexter and sinister fess points a crescent gules. Crest : A lion's head erased per pale or and vert, charged with two slipped trefoils fesswise and counter- changed, and crowned with an Eastern crown gules. Motto : " Beata petimus arva."

LONSDALE.

OLDEST PARISH REGISTER.

(8 th S. xi. 108, 215 ; 9 tb b. ii. 35, 133, 176,

278, 396, 416.)

As mentioned on p. 397, I wrote to the Itev. Frederick W. Beynon ; but he having died on 21 September, his wife. Mrs. C. Crewe Beynon, very kindly answered my letter. Among her husband's papers Mrs. Beynon found a manuscript account of the Alfriston registers, which she has given me ; and having obtained her permission to pub- lish the same, I have made a careful copy, and now send it for the benefit of your readers :

" The first book of the registers of Alfriston con- sists of a vellum-bound book now containing seventy- nine parchment leaves, of which seventy-six are occupied with the register proper ; the last three leaves are filled with the names and marks ' of vs who on the day and year above ritten have taken the Protestation sett forth by y e house of Com'ons May 5, 1641.' The page is headed with the date 27 June, 1641 ; another page has additional lists,

dated respectively 4 July, 1641, and 27 Feb., 1641 (the new year commenced on 25 March) ; the last leaf is filled with the account of offertory money from Michaelmas, 1766, to 23 March, 1772.

" The leaves occupied with the register have been marked with a folio number up to folio 83, but from this series the leaves numbered 43, 44, 53, 56, 73, 77, and 79 are missing, and after leaf 83 many leaves have evidently been cut out. Although these num- bered leaves are missing, Nos. 43, 44, 73, and 79 appear to be due to errors in the numbering, or must have been taken out before the register was filled, as the entries are continuous, notwithstanding the missing leaves; leaf 53 has been cut out, but also without interfering with the sequence of the entries. Of leaf 56 more presently. Portions of leaf 51 and of one of the last three leaves have been cut off, but apparently only for the pieces of clean parchment. The whole is bound in a limp vellum cover folding over the fore edge, with a thong to tie it with.

"The first book of the registers of Alfriston is remarkable for two peculiarities: First, for the manner in which it has been misdescribed by authorities and authors who wrote about it ; the ' Parish Register Abstract' of 1831 informs us that vols. i. and ii. contain baptisms and burials from 1538 to 1812, and marriages from 1538 to 1753. Lower, in his ' History of Sussex ' (vol. i. p. 5), when writing of Alfriston, remarks, ' Date of the earliest parish register, 1512 (this, I believe, is the oldest parish register in England, it having been kept con amore oy the vicar before the statute of Henry VIII., 1538).' The other and more remark- able feature is that the earliest [sic] entry recorded in the book is a marriage, dated ' x July, 1506'; nor is this a solitary entry, for there are no less than five entries dated 1504, and three entries dated 1505, then no more until 1547 ; and as these seven are all on the first page of the marriage register we must accept them as continuous, always remembering that the present book is but a transcript made in 1598 of an earlier one. To this fact the note inside the cover testifies :

" ' The Register Book ffor the parish of Alfriston in the County of Sussex, bought the xvij daye of November in the XL lh yere of the Raigne of o r

Sou ine Lady Elizabeth the Queens Mai tie that

now is. William Walker and Richard Woode al's Dyne, Churchwardens.'

"As the usual period for the commencement of parish registers was in 1538, in accordance with the injunction of that year issued by Thomas, Lord Cromwell, Privy Seal to Henry VIII., we are per- plexed how to account for these early entries of 1504 and 1505 among the marriages. They may have been taken from entries made in an old service book, or from an old account book in which the marriage fees may have been entered, or more pro- bably they are merely the answers made to inquirie? made by the vicar among some of his oldest parishioners as to when and where they were married, and so entered as the first marriage under the new order of things.

" The register commences with the christenings. The first page is headed with ' Christenings Anno D'ni 1538, the first entry being dated 12 October in that year. The first seventy-eight pages are filled with christenings, then the marriages intervene, then another six pages are filled with christenings, terminating with an entry dated 11 Aug., 1734. The entries, although commencing with the year 1538, are very imperfect; there are many years