Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/152

 122 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. VL ACO. is, 1900. Paris, n.d., vol. xvii. p. 366) in saying he was born 21 April, 1834. As I presume is inevitable, he was over- taken in the midst of another work. It was to have been a dictionary of all the books in which Don Quixote is mentioned, Mr. Fitz- maurice Kelly, who is his literary executor, will probably have the arduous task of iudsting whether the subject is of sufficient importance to encourage publication. I have endeavoured not to repeat infor- mation given in the authorities I have men- tioned, or in the notice of 1 August, p. 7, in the Times. Mr. Ashbee has left his books (including those which will never appear _ in the catalogue) and prints to the British Museum; his pictures and water-colour drawings to the National Gallery or South Kensington Museum if either will accept them. EALPH THOMAS. [When we knew Mr. Ashbee beat he lived in Bedford Square, at the south-eastern corner, where he had a capital library. He was a constant gue«t at the Saturday luncheons at the chambers in the Albany of poor Turner the eminent collector, others whom one frequently met there being the first Lord Houghton and Sennr Gayangos. Under the name Pisanus Fraxi he wrote, we have always understood, some bibliographies of literary knipladia, which are now scarce and highly priced. These comprise the ' Centuria Librorum Absconditorum.' the 'Index Librorum Prohibitorum," and the 'Catena Librorum Tacendornm," privately printed. Of these works the ' Bibliographic des Ouvrages relatifs a 1'Amour, etc.," quatriime Edition, says: "II est im- possible d'etre plus minutieux et plus conscienoieux. etc." Hia ' Bibliography of Tunisia' was reviewed 7th S. ix. 159, and his ' Don Quixote and British Art' ante, p. 80.] THE HOUSE AS A MEASURE OF COMMUNAL RIGHTS. (See 9th S. v. 349, 411, 520.) BEFORE discussing the proposition in- volved in the title of this article, I should like to say something more about the word messuage, which obviously means measure. In mediaeval records the commonest form of the word is mesagtum. and in Yorkshire a messuage is still called a " message." Mesn- f/iwm, according to Du Cange, means a house, and he quotes this passage, in which it plainly means a measure • "Singulis diebus liberatur cuilibet canonico Mesagium panis, id est, quinque panis libra." Every canon was to have a measure o) bread weighed out to him, that is, he was to have five pounds of bread daily. Surely he was not to have a " mansion " or " dwelling- house " of bread ! The English word, bor- rowed from the French, was mese, mes •mease, or meese. So in Blount'a 'Qlosso- •aphia,' 1674, we have " Mease, a measure of lerrings containing 500. Also taken for a Messuage or House." Again, in Huloet's Abecedarium,' 1552, we have " mease of lorynge," " mease of meate." and " mease of pottage." In Cotgrave the French mets a said to stand for me's, "a messe, course, or seruice of meat; also a house or tene- ment." And in Yorkshire they still speak of a meeos of porridge. A " mess of pottage" s therefore a measure of pottage, and the common derivation of E. mess from Lat. mumu is wrong. Having ascertained that " messuage" means measure, we are led to inquire whether other old names of building sites and peasants' houses may not have been con- nected with mensuration. One of these is the late L. mansux. Jacob Grimm says that this word may, with the greatest probability, be derived from manere, to dwell, just as F. m-eson, maison. have been derived from L. nui.nsw, and this seems to be the opinion of all subsequent etymologists. Grimm, however, refers to Huydecoper, who, he says, wasted his ingenuity in trying to prove that mansus was formed not from the participle of manere, hut from the participle of metiri, to measure, so that mansus stands for mensut, a measure. It is by no means clear that Huydecoper was wrong. Grimm says him- self that the mansus, like the O.H.G. huopa, was a piece of hedged and measured land, and that in German documents it is often equivalent to area, curtis,* and, as if he were helping Huydecoper to prove his case, he thinks that kuopa may be connected with O.N. hof, moderation, measure, though Schrader connect* it with Greek KJJB-OS, a garden. It may be worth while to mention the Greek ornfljoj, a rule, measure, and o-Tafl/tos, a dwelling, abode, though I am not aware that the Greek peasant's house was ever regarded as a measure. The word mensio, "measure," would as easily turn into mansio as mensura would turn into manaura; and when we read in Domesday Book of minutfe mansiones at York, fifty feet wide, it is difficult to believe, after all the evidence which I have produced, that these words mean anything else but "small measures," like mansiuncvlce, or like the " half-tofts " of later records. We may com- pare the Danish maal, " measure," which has also the meaning of homo, house, and the obsolete maahjord, land for a town which is measured orallotted to the inhabitants. Of the Swedish maal, "measure," Ihre says: "Prins
 * 'Rechtsalterthumer.'p. 535.