Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/89

 9*8. vii. FEB. 2, i90i.] NOTES AND QUEEIES.

81

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY *, 1901.

CONTENTS.-No. 162.

NOTES Gavelage and Pillar Tax, 81 Doubtful Passages in (Jhaucer, 82 The Abbot of Westminster's Plot, 139y, 84 'N. & Q.' in Fiction "Caba," 85 Corpse Superstition

Law's 'Kensington Palace ' Defoe's Last Male De- scendant " Gaucho " Jew and Israelite Living in Three Centuries, 8tf Botanical Christening, 87.

QUERIES : Van der Meulen and Huchtenburg Heraldic

Veimatius and his ' Christeid ' Barbant Dresden

Amen " The Everlasting Gospel," 87 " Carterly " Safford Family ' Gospel of Labour 'Albert the Good Dr. Johnson Rhododendrons and Oleanders -"Life not all beer and skittles " Funeral Cards Cromwell Family Haldane Stewart" Humbuz " Morwood " Self ode T> "Lungs of London" "Under weigh" Definition of Gratitude Bishop of London's Funeral Throgmorton, 89 Authors Wanted, 90.

RE PLIES :-Troy Weight for Bread Poem attributed to Milton, 90 Version of Lines Two of a Name in One Family Trental, 91 Sir J. B. Warren Carriages v. Pack- saddles Flemish Weavers Brasenose, Oxford Uphill Zigzag Downing Street, 92 John Bright or ' Cranford '

" Heaf " Mediaeval Tithe Barns Atwood Family- Killing Pigs Sir J. Douglas, 93 Title of Esquire" To keech " Norman Architecture " Peaky-blinder," 94 Chaucer Note Scotch Names in Froissart Medallions on Jug " Ance mariole "Eton College and Ram Hunting Suffolk Name for Ladybird, 95 Roll of Guild Merchants " Five o'clock tea "Paschal Moons Moon Lore Date Wanted Unclaimed Poem by Ben Jonson, 96 Surnames Duke of Bolton's Regiment, 98.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Corbett's ' Successors of Drake ' 'Le Dix-neuvieme Siecie' Gross's 'Sources and Litera- ture of English History.'

Notices to Correspondents.

frits,

GAVELAGE AND PILLAR TAX.

ON a previous occasion I maintained that the A.-S. gafol, tribute, was a secondary meaning of gafol, a fork, otherwise a pair of principals shaped like a fork or an inverted V, which in primitive houses extended from the floor to the ridge-tree, the change in gende indicating a change in meaning.* I have now discovered other evidence which, I hope, will remove any doubt that may still exist as to this identity.

In the year 1200 King John granted a charter to the burgesses of Scarborough declaring that they should have all the customs and liberties which the citizens of York had. The charter further declares that " for every house in Scarborough whose gable is turned towards the street they shall pay to us 4d. yearly, and as regards the houses whose sides face the street, Qd. yearly. "f

Here then we have a tax imposed on town houses whose gables (gabula) faced the street,


 * 9 th S. v. 31, 210.

f "Et ipsi de unaquaque domo de Escardeburg cujus gabulum est tornatum adversus viam nobis reddent singulis annis quatuor denarios, et de illis domibus quarurn latera versa sunt versus viam sex denarios per annum." * Rotuli Chartarum'( Hardy), part i. p. 40.

with a proviso that the tax should be higher if the gable did not face the street.

In the year 1250 an inquisition was made at Scarborough " concerning eight messuages with the appurtenances claimed by the King as his demesne from the Abbot of Citeaux." A jury was impanelled, and they on their oaths said

'that the Abbot holds eight messuages with the ippurtenances which the King claims against him as his demesne, where the capital messuage of the Abbot is situate, and he renders to the King yearly in the name of gabelage Qd. The said eight mes- suages, while they were separate, yielded to the King in gabelage by the year 3s. IQd. ; but now, as they are included in one messuage, they ought, according to the custom of the borough, to yield in the name of one gabelage (nomineunius Gabulagii) Qd. ; for the custom of the borough is such, that if any burgess inclose in one eight messuages or more yielding gablage [sic] severally, he shall yield one gablage only, that is Qd."*

Let it be noted that the tax is here called gabulagium, being with great probability de- rived from gabulum, the gable or forked end of a house. We may infer from the charter of 1200 how the sum of 3s. IQd. charged on the eight messuages was made up. The houses on seven of the messuages had their sides, and not their gables, turned to the street, and so rendered Qd. each. The remaining house had its gable turned to the street, and therefore rendered 4d.

It is obvious that the abbot had been try- ing to evade the tax, or to pay less than his just share of it. He was doing what people did a long time afterwards, when they built up windows in their houses to evade the window tax. There was no legal reason why a man should not have had only one window in his house, in order to pay tax on that window and no more. And there was no legal reason why the Abbot of Citeaux should not have turned his eight messuages into one, and by doing so have defeated the collectors of the revenue. Of course I am not con- cerned here with the morality of the thing. As regards the charter of King John, it looks as if, some time before the year 1200, the burgesses of Scarborough had been trying to evade the payment of gavelage by making it appear that if they built their houses con- tiguously, or turned the sides of the houses to the street, they would not be liable to pay this tax. One of the objects of the charter seems, therefore, to have been to defeat this attempt, and to assess at a higher rate the persons who had thus been trying to evade payment.

Arch., &c., Association), vol. i. p. 21.
 * 'Yorkshire Inq.,' Record Series (Yorkshire