Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/289

 vii. APRIL is, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

281

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1001.

CONTENTS. -No. 172.

NOTES :" Verge" and "Yard," 281 Executions at Tyburn and Elsewhere, 282 Grey Friars. Aberdeen Johnson r. BosweH St. Helena Playbill -22, Catherine Street, 285 " Whbm "Home The 42nd at Fontenoy West-Countrymen's Tails Influenza Germ of a Modern Centaur Myth Tithe, 286 Bottled Ale, 287.

QUERIES : "Speranza" and Swedeiiborg Perelle's Etch- ings " Curtsey-benders" Burnham Family Transvaal Dutch Oath of Allegiance Watch of Sir C. Shovell, 287 Lusus Naturae " Yockynggale " Glatnis Mystery "Darayne" Gates of Caroline Park, Edinburgh Great Exhibition Wellmere Decoy, Lincoln, 288 Lungs of London Rev. R. Thomson Sir J. Eyre Jewish Actors Official Lists" Shoehorned "Charter Conditions, 289.

REPLIES : " Noble " Fantastic Fiction, 290 Steere Funeral Cards" Nunty," 291 Monolith in Hyde Park- Source of Quotation Ireland and Frogs " Morning Glory "' ' Carrick " Parrot in ' Hudibras, ' 292 Sack and Sugar An American Invasion Campbells of Ard- kinglass Date Wanted Dutton Family, 293 Bell-ring- ing at Wakes "Anyone" : " Everyone " Roos Family, 294 Bonaparte Ballad " Munsie" Public Mourning- Detached Sheet Dr. Johnson, 295 A Mussulman Legend of Job Malt and Hop Substitutes Morris as a Man of Business Chisel Marks Vanishing London: Christ's Hospital Ships of War on Land, 296 " Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales" Ipplepen. co. Devon "So long" Defoe's Family, 297 Mrs. Arbuthnot Brasenose College, Oxford" Smous "Authors Wanted, 298. NOTES ON BOOKS : ' A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles ' Stainer's Speeches of Oliver Cromwell 'Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice's ' Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick.' Mr. George Murray Smith Dr. John Sykes. Notices to Correspondents.

goto.

"VERGE" AND "YARD/ SOME years must pass before the ' H.E.D. will be able to give us the history of these words. In the meanwhile I would draw attention (1) to the remarkable relation in most of their meanings between these words, the one French or imported from the French, the other pure English ; (2) to the develop ment from the first sense of both words, a rod, of a second sense as a space of grounc open or enclosed. During this developmenl trie English word remained unchanged ; but the secondary sense caused a slight differen tiation of the A.-S. gyrd or gierd into geard (whence also garth), of the French verge or vergue into vergee, of the Latin virga intc virgata; and yard remains exactly equivalen to each of these.

1. Verge=ya,rd or ell. Verge was long a synonym for aulne, ell; and the yard was one of the ells. Thus in Guernsey there were three ells. The verge a toilier, trie linen ell was a French aune reduced from 44 French inches to 44 English inches, polices de roy The others were the verge a drap of 3 Frencl feet=38^ inches, and the verge d'Angleterr of 3 English feet 36 inches. The term i

till in use : a Guernsey farmer writes to me,
 * La perche est de sept verges."

2. yerge=ya,rd or rod. In France the verge was also the rod or perch, sometimes the quare rod. Littre quotes: "a Clermont la mine de terre est de 60 vergues " ; that is, 50 French square rods, equal to an English icre, being sown with a mine (half a se'tier. or wo and one-sixth bushels) of wheat, tnat extent is called a mine in seed measure of and. Sometimes the square verge is called

vergee, but the latter term is generally eserved for the rood ; verge is a rod, vergee

rood. In Cornwall the rod, of 18 feet square, has the name of a yard : " Two goads square is called a yard of ground " (' H.E.D.'). ^.B., goad, gaid, or gad is only a variant of yard. See gad, ' H.E.D.'

It would seem that verge took root in England. This word in 'Richard II.,' I. i.

To the furthest verge That ever was survey'd by English eye

is probably the surveyor's verge, or rod. Nor- den's ' Surveior's Dialogue ' was published in 1610, not twenty years after * Ricnard II.' was written. He speaks of the " standard chaine " and of the " theodelite."

3. Verge'e=y&rd or rood. Just as the rood was a furrow long by a rod broad, so the vergee was a furrow long by a verge broad a quarter of the arpent (100 square perches) or of the acre de Normandie (160 square perches). To this day in Normandy land is reckoned and advertised in vergees :

" A louer apres deces, pour la Saint-Michel pro- chaine, une excellente Terre bien plantee, contenant vingt-sept vergees, situe"e a la Haize-Raulet, en Marcey. Journal d' Avranches, 1900.

This is also the unit of land-holding in Guernsey ; there it is the same as the Lancashire and Irish rood. Our rood was also called a yard-land : "A rod of land which some call a roode, some a yarde lande, and some a farthendele" (Recorde, 1542, in 'H.E.D.'). In later editions of Recorde the "yard-land " is dropped. This passage becomes "A rodd of land which some call a rood or quarter of an acre."

4. Virgate=ya,rd or quarter-hide. In our statute French verge was also the virgate, the fourth of a carucate or hide : " Quant une homme est feffe dune verge de terre & dun autre de un carue du terre " (Statute of Wards, 1300). Mr. Maitland ('Domesday Book and Beyond ') considers that the quarter- hide was called a virgate because it was a quarter (that is, a vergee) of each acre in the hide. That it may sometimes have been composed of a hundred or more rood-strips is possible, but it is also probable that, vergde