Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/90

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NOTES ANDQUERIES

Now, if it can be proved that the gables of houses invariably, or even usually, faced the street, we shall know for certain that aabulaqium was a tax on gables. Any book on English domestic architecture will produce evidence that in old towns or cities the gables faced the street. The document known as 4 Fitz-Alwyne's Assize,' dated 1189, shows that the gables of London houses faced the street * Du Cange defines gabulum as (1) trons jedificii " and (2) " census, tributum ' In the fifteenth century the * Catholicon Anghcum

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explains "gavelle of a howse" by the word frontispicium i.e., front view. And the 'Ramsey Chartulary ' of the thirteenth cen- tury shows that to speak of houses which had doors opening on the street was tantamount to speaking of dwelling-houses.t As the doors were in the gable ends, it is easy to see that taxing doors was virtually the same thing as taxing gables. The difference there- fore between the Roman ostianum, or door tax, and the later gabulagium, or gable tax, is only nominal. .

Gavelage appears to have been payable in Scarborough as late as 1697, for in that year De laPryme thus describes a ceremony which was performed there :

"The town is a corporation town, and tho' it is

very poor now to what it was formerly, yet it has a

who is commonly some poor man, they havemg

no rich ones amongst them. About two days before

Michilmass day the sayd being arrayed in his

gown of state, he mounts upon horseback, and has his attendants with him, and the macebear[er] carrying the mace before him, with two fidlers and a base viol. Thus marching in state (as bigg as the lord mare of London), all along the shore side, they make many halts, and the cryer crys thus with a strang sort of a singing voyce, high and low,

Whay! Whay ! Whay !

Pay your gavelage, ha !

Between this and Michaelmas day,

Or you'll be fined, 1 say !

Then the fiddlers begins to dance, and caper, and plays, fit to make one burst with laughter that sees and hears them. Then they go on again, and crys as before, with the greatest majesty and gravity immaginable, none of this comical crew being seen as much as to smile all the time, when as spectators are almost bursten with laughing.

"This is the true origin of the proverb, for this custom of f/avelage is a certain tribute that every

house pays to the when he is pleased to call for

it, and he gives not above one day warning, and may call for it when he pleases. "J


 * Riley, 'Munimenta Gildhalke Lond.,' p. xxx.

f "Item quselibet domus, habens ostium apertum versus vicum, tarn de malmannis, quam de cotman- nis, et operariis, inyeriiret unum hominem ad love- bone, sine cibo domini, prater Ricardum Pemdome," &c. Cited by Vinogradoff, ' Villainage,' p. 460.

' Diary of Abraham De la Pryme'(Surtees Soc.),

p. 126. The proverb " Scarburg Warning."

to which he refers is the

We must not lose sight of the fact that the houses in Scarborough which paid gavelage were town houses, belonging to burgesses and fishermen We do not know their sizes, but it woSd have been manifestly unjust to tax

small house at the same rate as a large houTe and I have shown that m ancient Wales' houses were valued by the number of "forks" which they contained.* tfut 1 am not concerned with the sizes of houses now. I am merely proving that gavelage was a tax imposed on " gables." .

The evidence which I have produced is ot the very best kind, and I submit that, on con- sidering that evidence, it is no longer possible to maintain that the A.-S. gafol, tribute, is a derivative of the verb to give, boine ot the best dictionaries, however, have so derived it, without hesitation. So far as I know, Kluge and Lutz are the only modern etymo- logists who have escaped this pittall. In their 'English Etymology ' (Strassburg, 1898) they content themselves with mentioning the Late Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish forms of the word, and refer it to a Teutonic substantive gabula. The Latin gabalus, a fork or gibbet, is of course a cognate form.

S. O. ADDY. (To be continued.)

DOUBTFUL PASSAGES IN CHAUCER.

IN the 'Canterbury Tales ' edited by Thomas Tyrwhitt several passages are given up in despair as inexplicable. I do not know whether any one has since solved them, but I offer such explanation as occurs to me.

In ' The Miller's Tale ' (3692) we are told of Absolon that

Under his tonge a trewe love he bere, For thereby wend he to ben gracious,

of which Tyrwhitt declares "what this can be I know not." This I conjectured was an error of transcription or typography, and should have been not trewe love, but a tri or triple leaf or clover, which borne under the tongue conferred the gift of eloquence or persuasion. Thus Johann Prsetorius in his ' Riibenzahl ' writes :

" Here the third Grace or Aglaia happily occurs, she who leads thee and me to cheerful confidence (zu Gemiithe), and places in our hands, or under the tongue, the third leaflet to perfect this happily begun and merry Clover-leaf."

In a chap-book tale of the seventeenth cen- tury given by Mr. John Ashton we are told how a dumb woman recovered her speech by having an aspen-leaf laid under her tongue. But unfortunately three > leaves were applied,


 * 9 th S. v. 210.