Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/213

 .in. MAR. is,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

207

DC i volume (viii.) of a set of the above. It sv; s in the Radcliffe Library, Oxford, until 18 )4, when it was sold by order of the trustees, n e grieving possessor of the other 37 vols. ca i have it, if this fortunately meets his eye. It is a pity for such a set to be spoilt.

J. B. MADAN. ])ownton, Sarum.

dories,

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

MYSTERIOUS MARKS IN OLD CHURCHES. Thus was headed the following paragraph reprinted in the London Morning of 16 Feb., a Halfpenny journal unknown to me until that date :

" There are on the walls of many English churches, particularly those of the South Midland counties (says Mr. A. C. Bickley in the Church Gazette), mysterious marks, some fairly large, many very small, that have puzzled ecclesiologists ever since that inestimable race existed. They are most common on the south wall of the nave and aisles. Almost invariably they are at such a height as would show that they cannot have been made by village idlers of the class who have favoured us with so many cup-marks. They fall into three main classes : (1) a dot surrounded by one or more concentric circles ; (2) circles containing radii, more or less I numerous; and (3) dots arranged in squares, some- I times connected by lines, and sometimes not. With i regard to these last, I own I am unable to even cannot possibly mean, but what they do is, as j'Jeames'is reported to have remarked, ' wropp'd ,is the circle with radii. Sometimes there are twelve radii, sometimes twenty-four, sometimes an odd 'number. Sometimes the radii are confined to lone part of the circle, sometimes not. It is, con- fessedly, about this variety that the interest in wall-marks culminates. In some instances there can be no doubt that they are incomplete sundials, (though in these cases, as at Redbourne (Herts), they jare so unastronomically arranged as to lead to the conclusion that our early ancestors were as indif- Iferent as if they had been Orientals to the flight of jtime. But the majority cannot by any stretch of the imagination have been time recorders. No one would put a dial on the south inner wall of a church. Another theory which has been started is that these (marks are a survival of an ancient belief in orient a- ion. But these marks are not to be found in Gorman churches. The earliest we can absolutely late are First Pointed. Why, then, should a leathen belief have lain dormant for a couple of mndrcd years (at least) and then have been suddenly, .nd without reason, revived? I desire to reward uy readers by propounding a brand-new theory, t is remarkable that we do not find these circular narks containing radii common on our cathedrals r great fanes. Nearly all are on the walls of obscure
 * suggest a theory. I could give a list of things they
 * in mystery.' The second variety I want to speak of

village churches. We know now that in building minsters and abbeys the workmen had plans and elevations such as they have to-day, but that such was the case with small and unimportant, if equally artistic, buildings is highly improbable. Yet the very regularity of design snowed that there must tiave been some master-mind who directed the whole building. The theory I wish to propound is that some, at least, of these wall-marks with their varying radii were intended, if the lines were continued, to mark such salient points of the building as the base or springing lines of windows, the elevation of a moulding, of the coping-stone of the gable, or what not. if this should jiave been the intention of the inscribers, it is difficult to imagine any more useful guide to those who desire, either with a view to restoration or for mere study, to discover what like was an ancient church." Are these anything more than the ordinary masons' marks " 1 ST. SWITHIN.

MUTTERD. Will some kind reader tell me where Mutterd is ? I read in Berry's pedigree of Cheney (Kent) that John Cheney (elder son of Sir Thomas Cheney, K.G., temp. Henry VIII.-Elizabeth) was slain at Mutterd, which therefore seems to have been a battle- field. The spelling, of course, may differ. W. L. BUTTON.

HALLIDAY. Margaret, daughter of William Halliday, Alderman of London, married Sir Edward Hungerford (Sheriff of Wiltshire, 1631). John Halliday, of Gloucestershire, clothier, married Susan Hulbert, of Corsham, about the same time. References to Halliday pedigree are requested in order to ascertain the connexion between William and John.

PLANTAGENET.

" TERR.E FILIUS." Can any one explain the meaning of this expression as formerly con- nected with the University of Oxford ?

W. J. B. R

St. Charles's College, W.

[Terrce Filiiis, an obscure person, a clod. Applied in the Middle Ages to a buffoon.]

ST. JORDAN. (See 5 th S. iii. 129.) May I repeat this unanswered query ] Leland (v. 64) says :

" Ibique [Bristol] in magna area [? College Green] sacellurn iiii quo sepultus est S. Jordanus, unus ex discipulis Augustini Anglorum Apostoli." What is known about Jordan 1 I do not find him in Bede, ' Diet. Christ. Biog.,' or Baring- Gould's ' Saints.' C. S. WARD.

Wootton St. Lawrence, Basingstoke.

ST. CROSS PRIORY, ISLE OF WIGHT. Dug- dale mentions the above, but does not say whereabouts in the island it was, and the information is scanty in the extreme which he does give. There is no mention of the priory in Percy G. Stone's 'Architectural