Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/462

 454

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. vii. JUNE s, 1901.

Records of the Borough of Northampton,' published in two volumes in 1898 by order of the Corporation. In the first volume, edited by Mr. C. A. Mark ham, is a transcript (with translation where the original is not in English) of the most precious of North- ampton's archives, its ' Liber Custumarum.' There are a number of ordinances (by-laws) made "att the comon semble Holden in the Chircheof SeyntGiles Thabbot,"at"colloqura genale tent in ecclia Sci Egidij," or at "con- gregationem hitam in Ecclia pdict." In the second volume Dr. Cox says :

" There can be no doubt that, from about 1300, when the town was enlarged and St. Giles included in the new walls, the colloquium generate or con- greyafio of the townsmen (in English the general assembly of the commonalty) was summoned from time to time, for nearly two centuries, to hold its

meetings in the body of that large church Every

male of working age was expected to be present at the town assembly. At Sandwich, for instance, on the first Monday in December, the town serjeant sounded the common horn for a general assembly, and made the following cry at the fourteen accus- tomed places : ' Every man of twelve years or more, go to St. Clement's church, there our commonalty hath need. Haste, haste."'

Contemporaneously with the meetings at St. Giles's Church, "municipal business " was also transacted at the Guildhall by the mayor, bailiffs, and a few select burgesses. The common assemblies were abolished by the Act of 1489, which substituted for the com- monalty forty-eight of the most discreet and best-disposed townsmen. K.

JEAN LE MANIQUE (9 th S. vii. 367). Jean le Maingre, Sire de Boucicault, was son of another Jean le Maingre (also a distinguished marshal of France) by his first wife, Florie or Fleurie de Linieres, Dame d'Es tableau et de la Bretiniere et du Breuildone, en Provence, daughter of Godernar, Seigneur de Linieres. He was born at Tours in 1364, and made his first campaign under Duguesclin. He per- formed prodigies of valour at the battle of Rosbec, and became a marshal at twenty -five years of age. He was made prisoner at Agincourt and taken to England, where he died in 1421. His body was interred at Tours in the chapel of his family, behind the choir of the church at St. Martin. In his epitaph he was called " Grand Connetable de 1'Empereur et de 1'Empire de Constanti- nople." His memoirs are in existence, and they tell us that he was a poet and composed "rondeaux, ballades, et virelays." He mar- ried in 1393 Antoinette de Beaufort, Comtesse de Beaufort et Vicomtesse de Turenne, only daughter of Raymond, Vicomte de Turenne, et de Marie d'Auvergne. She died in 1416,

leaving all her estates to her husband for his life. They had one son Jean, who died before his mother. CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Swallowfield.

'PAMINA AND TAMINO" (9 th S. vii. 367). Two names which occur in the Terpsichore of Goethe's 'Hermann und Dorothea.' F. M. desires to know who these worthies were. I think he will find that they were the two lovers who figure in Mozart's 'II Flauto Magico ' PATRICK MAXWELL.

Bath.

Pamina and Tamino are the names of two lovers in Mozart's ' Zauberflote,' which was composed in 1791. ' Hermann urid Dorothea' was written six or seven years later. Doubt- less Minna and her family laughed at Her- mann because he knew nothing about the latest operas. E. MEIN.

[Many replies are acknowledged.]

SHAKESPEARE QUERIES (9 th S. vii. 388). The suggestion that to Delia Bacon was granted a faculty sanctioning inspection of Shakespeare's grave has no support afforded it in Nathaniel Hawthorne's account of that monomaniac (see 'Recollections of a Gifted Woman' in Hawthorne's 'Our Old Home'). He represents that she was very considerately treated by the vicar of Stratford, and that the enterprise in which she engaged was abandoned by her because " her own convic- tions began to falter." F. JARRATT.

Barnstaple.

r DR. FORBES WATSON (9 th S. vii. 247, 354). I thank J. P. B. for his information, but he has confused two different men. The Forbes Watson for whom I inquired died before his ' Flowers and Gardens ' was published in 1872. Since sending my query I have found out all about him that I want to know, and a new edition of the book will shortly be published by Mr. Lane of the Bod ley Head. H. N. ELLACOMBE.

MALT AND HOP SUBSTITUTES (9 th S. vii. 150, 215, 296). The herb called the "ground- ivy " was generally used for preserving ale before the introduction of hops. In Sweden, at least in the fifteenth century, hops seem riot to have been very common, for at that time sweet gale (Myrica gale) was employed for beer, and so generally that King Chris- topher, in 1440, confirmed the old law that those who collected this plant before a certain period, on any common or on another person's land, should be subjected to a fine. Another wild plant in Germany called post, and by botanists Ledum paln^stre was in olcj