Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/103

 91" S. IV. Sept. 2, 99.] 199 NOTES AND QUERIES. which extends from circa 1275 to 1298, and is chiefly interesting as illustrating the conditions of com- merce, ana especially the intercourse of London citizens with Gascony—then, of course, under English rule—and with Spain, wine and leather being the principal commodities mentioned. A single instance of an entry selected haphazard must suffice. On p. 92 it appears that " Wednesday the morrow of the Feast of Circumcision [1 Jan.], 14 Edward I. [a.d. 1285-6], Robert Beynard acknow- ledged himself bound to John Skip in the sum of 50w. in which he was attainted upon a wine account; to be paid, one moiety on Ash Wednesday and the other at Hokeday; and unless" he did so he granted that the same should be levied on lands, rents, chattels, &c. In a list of those who have mills we find "the lord the King" (people still recall "the King's Mills"), the Templars, the Hospitallers, the Prioress of Clerken well, the Bishop of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Amice, the House of London Bridge, &c. The list is followed by that of bakers, divided into White- bakers and Tourt-bakers, the latter (Turturarii) bakers of a coarse bread made of unbolted meal and knownas"tourt." Afurtherentrydescribesthe conditions of wardship when three children of Alan Godard are entrusted to Sarah, daughter of Alex- ander Haberdas. On p. 209 are given the names of the aldermen of the different wards, the alderman for " Porsoken" being the " Prior of H. Trinity do Alegate." The first entry at the assizes, a.d. 1276-7, orders that " the peace of the lord the King be well kept between Christians and Jews." Then follow orders to bakers that "two loaves be made for Id. and that none be coated with bran or made of bran," that" a gallon of ale be sold for three-farth- ings," that no foreign butcher sell meat " in the City," nor " buy meat from the Jews to sell again to Christians, or meat slaughtered for Jews and by them rejected." We might quote abundant matter of interest, but our readers of antiquarian tastes will turn to the book for themselves. Whether the whole of the series of Letter-Books is to be printed we know not. It is at least to be hoped that the series will be continued under the same indefatigable and competent editor to whom we owe the ' Calendar of Husting Wills' and other works of extreme interest. The Natural History of the Mimical Bow. By Henry Balfour, M.A. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) Thosk who turn to the first instalment of Mr. Balfour's work with the expectations its title is calculated to awake will find those expectations unfulfilled. A history of primitive music in a sense this opening portion is. Its chief interest is, how- ever, tor the folk-lorist rather than the musician. That the archer's bow is the parent form whence sprang "a long line of descendants," developing under favourable conditions "into some of the most elaborate and highly specialized of modern instruments," is no new theory. The aim of Mr. Balfour is to trace, from the discoveries and obser- vations of recent travellers, " the affinities of the various types of the instrument, its geographical distribution, and the probable lines of dispersal." So far as regards what may perhaps be called civi- lized instruments the bow with which the rebec, the oldest recognized stringed instrument, was played was exactly the shape of the archer's bow, with the stick much bent. In mediaeval times the nut and head seem to have been employed, and in the course of the eighteenth century the bow obtained the shape it has since maintained. Going much further back, Mr. Balfour deals with the music of primitive people, and refers to the Hindu tradition which regards the pindka, as employed by Siva, as the prototype of all stringed instruments, and the Greek ascription of the Kithara to Apollo, the god of the bow. Turning then to Africa, he shows how the Damaras tie a piece of reim round the bow string and the handle, binding them together; then, holding the bow horizontally against their teeth, strike the bowstring, now tense, with a small stick. The hollow of the mouth serves as a sounding-board, as in the Jew's harp. Kaffirs, Basutos, Zulus, Swazis, and other tribes or races employ similar devices, the means employed, and the gradual development of method, being shown in some very serviceable illustrations. Very interesting is the description of the various resources to heighten the sound, which in the original shape must have been very slight, and we wait with some eagerness for the second part of the monograph, which will deal with the higher instruments developed from primitive types. A map showing the geographical distribution of the musical bow is given. Mr. Balfour, it should be said, is the curator of the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford, and draws from the fine collection he guards the illustrations of early types with which he for the present deals. Piers Oaveslon. By Walter Phelps Dodge. (Fisher Unwin.) In the career, picturesque and tragic, of Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall and favourite of Ed- ward II., Mr. Dodge has seen materials for a volume which he hopes may form what Stevenson called a " Foot-note to History." He has gone to work with exemplary industry, and produced a book at once erudite and interesting, though a little wanting in form and embarrassed by repetitions. The estimates formed of Gaveston and of his weak and vacillating monarch, strong only in his affections, are the same to which we are accustomed in works of authority. From the darker suspicions which attached to the character of a king's favourite Mr. Dodge frees his hero, if such he may be called, summing up his career in the two words "misunderstanding and " misunderstood," to which, however, should be added such other qualifications as grasping, in- Bolent, and avaricious. Mr. Dodge has always had recourse to first authorities, and his work is a piece of solid scholarship. A goodly array of documents, English, French, and Latin, is exhibited in the shape of an appendix, and a few well-chosen illus- trations add to the attractiveness and worth of his volume. We are glad to meet Mr. Dodge in the field of English mediaeval history, which it is to be trusted he will further cultivate with no less remunerative results. Otia Merstiana. Vol. I. (Wohlleben.) 'Otta Merseiana' is the title bestowed upon a publication of the Arts Faculty of University College, Liverpool. The work, ushered in by a preface by Mr. J. M. Mackay, the Honorary Dean of the Faculty, is intended to be annual, and will consist of original studies by professors, lecturers, readers, and graduates of the University. Attention to a Welsh Romani folk-tale, which is included among the contents, has been already drawn by Mb. Axon (see ante, p. 161). Mr. E. H. Parkes sends a valuable paper on 'The Population and