Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/367

. VIIL NOV. 2, IDOL] NOTES AND QUERIES.

359

I have only to add that this humble letter will be printed in the appendix to my 'History,' accom- panied by whatever reply your Excellency may

deign to make 1 have the honour to remain

Your Excellency's humble Servant,

JACQUES CASANOVA DE SEINGALT.

It will be noticed that Casanova here says that he has written the history of his life, a statement that must be accepted with limi- tations. There is no doubt that in the interval between 1790 and the date of this letter he had written his ' Histoire de mon Existence,'* and had probably roughed out sufficient material for the six volumes he speaks of material which during the six following years he expanded and revised at leisure.

The " culpable indiscretion " for which Casanova implores pardon was committed in 1782, when he published a satire entitled 'Ne Amori ne Donne ovvero la Stalla d'Augia ripulita,' which gave offence not only to Grimani, but to the whole nobility of Venice, and necessitated his departure from that city. The above letter (in the Italian language) is the property of Signer Luigi Artelli. It was first published by the Abbe Rinaldo Fulin in his ' Giacomo Casanova e gP Inquisitori di Stato.'

RICHARD EDGCUMBE.

Edgbarrow, Crowthorne, Berks. (To be continued.)

JAMES THE DEACON AND AYSGARTH.

THE purpose of this note is to show the probability that the place in which James the Deacon remained baptizing after Paulinus had fled from York was really Aysgarth. The words of Bede, 'H. E.,' ii. 20, are these " Cujus nomine vicus, in quo maxime solebat habitare, juxta Cataractam, usque hodie cog- nominatur." It is usually assumed that this Cataracta is the ame place in which it is said (ii. 14) that Paulinus had baptized in the Swale, and then arises the difficulty that no place can be discovered near to the Swale which seems to bear the name of James. But this need not be so at all ; the word Cataracta means simply a waterfall, and might refer in ii. 20 to falls in the Swale, the lire, or a other river in the neighbourhood. All that Bede says is that the place where James baptized was near a waterfall, and that when he wrote his history it was still known bj the deacon's name. In its present form th name Aysgarth seems to have little to d' with James, but if we consider its ancien

February, 1887, p. 35.
 * A portion of this work was printed in Le Livre

orms the case is altered. Spelman in his Villare Anglicum' writes it Ayskarth. In he 'Valor Ecclesiasticus ' it is written ykscarth and Ayscarth, and in the Aug- mentation Roll Aykebargh. In a Patent oll of 21 Richard II. (1397), appropriating he church to Jervaulx Abbey, it appears as Lyksgarth, and in a charter of 18 Edward I. 1290) as Aikebergh. These references are aken from Dugdale's ' Monasticon,' v. 568- 78. In Domesday it appears, f. 311, among he possessions of Earl Alan as Echescard ; t is found among a group of Wensleydale manors, preceded by Fors, Askrigg, and Worton, and followed by Burton and Car- perby. I have not been able to find any mention of the name between Bede's 'His- /ory ' and Domesday. It will be noticed that ,he form Ayk-, answering to the first syllable of Jacobus, is persistent in the documents >etween Domesday and the Augmentation foil. Aysgarth, then, complies with the con- litions required by the passage of Bede : it stands close by a very beautiful series of waterfalls, and it still bears the name of the deacon who baptized the heathen Northuin- Drians twelve hundred and fifty years ago. There is no spot on the banks of the Swale of which this can be said. Further, Aysgarth would have formed an excellent site for a mission station, since it lies near the ancient road which descends from the north-east into the valley of the Ure, and, traversing the valley to Bainbridge, crosses Cam Fell to Gearstones and Ingleton : there would have been maiiy coming and going. Finally, it is very doubtful whether Bede, either in ii. 14 or ii. 20, could have intended Cataracta to apply to the Roman station Cataractonium. If he had meant this he would no doubt have used the form Cataracton, as he does in iii. 14. Cataracta seems to be used simply in the sense of a waterfall. Garth is usually considered to be a Norse word, and if so it would have taken the place of an English termination long after the deacon's time. The supposition presents no difficulty, for in this district English and Norse place- names are very closely intermingled.

C. S. TAYLOK. Banwell Vicarage, Somerset.

ANCIENT BRITISH CITIES. ON comparing the lists of British cities in Nennius, as given in the editions of the Rev. W. Gunn (1819), (Father) Joseph Stevenson (1837), and Dr. Todd (1848) the two former from manuscripts of the tenth century, the last from late Irish ones it will be found that Gunn's text gives thirty-three cities in the