Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/472

 504 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. iv. DEC. ie, -99. or fissure. The French cMneau is from the Latin canalis. The English canal is from the French canal, whilst channel is from the Old French chattel. Not one of these words, then, is cognate with ginn, which I take to be the A.-S. gin, "a gap, an opening, an abyss" (Toller's ' Bosworth'), and of which ginnel, a well-known dialect word, is very probably a diminutive. What I really want to know is whether Thornber, and—evidently following him—Nodal and Milner, were justified in regarding ginn as a Fylde dialect word. That word occurs once in the Fylde as the name of a ravine, called in the last century Warbreck Ginn, and now simply The Oinn. Is the occurrence of this name Thornber's only authority for including the word in his glossary ? And does that word occur again as a place-name, either in the Fylde or else- where? J. R. BOYLE. Hull. I am afraid that ME. BULLOCK is in error in the examples he mentions of ginn giving the idea of a ravine. Newbigging, rather a common place-name in Scotland, is from A.-S. biggin, a building, and has no reference to a ravine. Kyleakin is from cool, Gaelic for a strait; akin from Haco or Hacon, King of Norway. Here the idea, of a ravine or strait is not from kin, so similar in sound to ginn, but from kyle. which shows that Kyleakin cannot be adduced as a word showing the idea suggested. J. G. WALLACE-JAMES, M.B. Haddington. At Whitehaven, in Cumberland, the colliery district of the town is called "The Ginns." I have always understood the name arose from the horse engines used to wind up the coal before, the use of steam ; these were called "ginns." ALFRED F. CURWEN. THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH COINAGE (9th S. iv. 431).—To the very interesting arguments of MR. ADDY might be added the present common name in Wiltshire (probably else- where also) of ski.lling or skillen for an open cowshed. In Ogilvie's 'Imperial Dictionary' the word skilling is thus defined, " A bay of a barn ; also a slight addition to a cottage." PLANTAGENET. RENT SERVICES (9th S. iv. 396).—This effete ceremony may fairly be regarded as a legal fiction, similar to the exploded formula " John Doe on the demise of Richard Roe verms N or M. Thera U no corroborative evidence that Londoners ever held the so-called Moors 01 occupied the indefinite forge. The point to considered is that the land on which London then stood was the absolute freehold of its citizens, and totally exempt from feudal service. Note its exclusion from Domesday Book, although several Londoners were involved therein for lands and houses n various counties, some held directly from the Crown. This acknowledgment of feudal service by- cutting stakes and simulating smith's work was carefully defined as outside London, so as not to compromise their independence as "freemen" ; this is confirmed by the allow- ance of 7l. per annum, nominally for land transferred elsewhere, paid by deduction from the 300£. ferm rent due for the Shriev- alty. So we have a cunningly devised legal fiction to save appearances. The Norman Vice-Comes or Sheriff was, or had been, appointed by the Crown, as a sort of toll-collector under the Exchequer, and at the present day the Under-Sheriff is really a bailiff; so the Corporation com- pounded with the Crown for the appointment at a fixed charge of 300/. per annum, minus "d., as a sort of quitrent for not really doing menial work in real life. It is mere simula- tion. Could it be called a serjeanty 1 A. HALL. Highbury. LIVRY (9th S. iv. 208).- " L'abbaye de religieuses augustiues [de Livry), fondle en 1186 par le pieu* seigneur Guillaume-de Galande, noun f invocation de Xotre-Dame et placta par lui sous I'autorit^ du chapitre de Senlis, out, en 1791, le sort de toutes les proprietes monastioues. —'Les Environs de Paris' (p. 118), par Loui« Barron (Paris, Quantin, 1887). A. D. JONES. Oxford. A note in Walckenaer's 'Memoirs of Madame de Sevigne,' vol ii. p. 403, refers to "1'eglise Notre-Dame de Livry." Whether the abbey and the church have the same dedication is a point I am unable to decide, but Dulaure, in his ' Histoire des Environs de Paris,' states that the abbey was founded and the church built since the year 1200. Wai pole's playful reference to Madame de Sevigne as "notre Dame de Livry" may be accepted as a slight collateral proof of the above. J. F. FEY. EPITAPH IN PRITTLEWELL CHURCH, NEAR SOUTHEND (9th S. iv. 326, 427).—I did not see MR. J. T. PAGE'S transcription of the epitaph in ' N. & Q.' Had I done so I should certainly not have prefaced my version with the remarks of which MR. PAGE justly complains. I had no intention of putting forward ray