Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/229

 9* s. vm. SEPT. K, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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said of Villani's view: "Si Iasci6 morire i prigione." Scartazzini quotes from the 'Regis tro dei Privilegi dell' Ospedale Nuovo di Pisa what probably constitutes the facts :

" Lo che [sentence of stoning] Pier prevenne, pre cipitandosi a terra da un mulo su cui era tratto, sfracellandosi disperatamente le cervella. D' one fu che morisse nella chiesa di Sant' Andrea i Brattolaia."

2. Ibid., 64

La meretrice che mai dall' ospizio

Di Cesare non torse gli occhi putti.

Who or what was la meretrice in Dante'

mind ? Chaucer has had many followers in

his suggestion of Envy

Envie is lavender to the Court alway, For she ne parteth neither night ne day Out of the house of Cesar : thus saith Dant but I venture to dissent from this view. The groundwork of it is, of course, the commonly supposed (or taken-for-granted) connexion o the phrase with 1. 78 :

Del colpo che invidia le diede. I fail to see any link between them. Castel vetro (quoted by Dr. Moore) is (unless I misapprehend his meaning) evidently like

might be urged that although he considerec Pier had not up to 1. 63 alluded to the cause of his downfall, yet that he imme- diately began to do so in the next line. In the doubt, however, I claim him for my view, which Scartazzini briefly mentions with an ill-disguised sneer: "Al. la Corte di Roma ; e forse la Corte romana morte commune, e delle corti vizio ?" I am convinced that the epithet, as put by Dante into Pier's mouth, means nothing more nor less than the Apocalyptic 17 prjTyp TUV TTopvwv, as the accredited symbol (whether rightly or wrongly I am not con- cerned here) of the Roman Court. Frederick's own Court had not the monopoly of the intrigues which destroyed Pier, as the accu- sation whether false or just of having revealed the emperor's secrets to Rome witnesses of itself. And, strange as it appears to fling such opprobrium at the Court which compounded his treason (sup- posing his guilt), it is less surprising when viewed in the light of its after consequences. Another supposition : Was Dante venting a long-standing personal grievance against the Roman Court ? If so, the expression is severe, but not more so than consigning the head of the Roman Court ad inferos.

J. B. McGovERN. bt. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

BATH ABBEY ARMS. At the time of com- piling my work on the monuments and heraldry of Wells Cathedral I was unable to meet with any trustworthy information as to the arms of Bath Abbey, beyond the fact that they comprised the keys and sword ; but the colours were very doubtful, though I ventured to assert that the shield was blue. The roof of Bath Abbey, after its Jacobean and subsequent restorations, affording no proof, the only pre-Reformation evidence known to me was the first letter of the inscription still remaining on the west front of Bath Abbey, namely, "Domus mea Domus oro'nis." There we see the keys and sword of SS. Peter and Paul, cut within the capital D, but of course no colours are given. This being the case, it will be readily understood that, having recently had an opportunity when at Bath of visiting the little church of St. Catherine, about four miles from that city, my delight at finding an early example of the arms of Bath Abbey was almost equalled by mv astonishment at the cursory way in which Collinson, in his ' History of Somerset,' dis- misses the heraldry of the old glass there. He simply states that "the arms of the Abbey, viz., St. Peter's key crossed with a sword," are there. Nor is he quite correct in iis copy of the inscription in the window ; it should be "Orate pro anima D'ni Joh'is Jantelow quonda Prioris hanc cancella fieri ! ecit Ao: D: MCCCCLXXXXVIII." There is a igure of Prior Cantlow wearing his mitre, ind with a purple robe, over which is a }lue mantle, while from his mouth issues a scroll inscribed "OH Dei misere mei." The nonogram of the prior, " I. C.," is frequently repeated.

But what is the special interest of this glass is one of the three shields of arms, of which nothing but the above brief notice s mentioned by Collinson. The first shield s Az., two keys in bend dexter, the upper >ne arg., the lower one or, interlaced by a sword in bend sinister of the second, the lilt and porael, &c., of the third : un- oubtedly the arms of the Abbey of Bath, ^he second shield has France and England quarterly ; while the third shield has the personal coat of Prior Cantlow, viz., Arg., n a fess az., between three monograms f I. C. or, a mitre of the last. These hields are particularly interesting, the lass being beyond question of the date indi- ated in it, namely, 1498, and probably the nly pre-Reformation representation of the rms of the mitred abbey of Bath, and the nly example of the arms of Prior Cantlow,