Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/405

 9< 8. vm. NOV. 16, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

397

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1C, 1901.

CONTENTS. -No. 203.

NOTES : Beaulieu as a Place-name, 397 Casanoviana, 400 Gazetted for refusing an Honour- Index to the ' D.N. B.' Prince of Wales, 401 Negro at the White House- Wesley, Lillo, and Home Coleridge in Rome Chris- topher Anstey's House at Bath Hoppner, R. A. "Com- mando," 402 Snow - feathers Newspaper Errors Buckinghamshire Custom Sir W. K. Green, 403.

QUERIES : " Ormella " " Spatchcock " " Deistical Miss Katies," 403" Wage "=Wages Bristow Family Child's Book of Verses Royal Progress of William III. J. de Walbroc, Sheriff of London Ranulph, Earl of Chester St. Alice Lords Lieutenant Isaac of Norwich Bricks Pagett, 101 Latin Lines "Your friends will bury you" Arms Wanted Widow of Malabar Sabbath Day Thurlow and the Duke of Grafton Wakerell Bell Obelisk at St. Peter's, 405.

REPLIES : "Panshon," 406 Forlong 'Marseillaise' Ancient Boats Armorial : Leigbton Family, 407 Oceania 'The. Coming K ,' 408 Chewar S. Du Bois Spider- eating, 409 Borrow St. Marcella Saying of Socrates- Williamson Sarten, 410 Paying Rent at a Tomb Sweeny Todd " Halsh," 411 Waller Family-Fire kept Burning "Abacus," 412 "Alright "= All right Addresses to Richard Cromwell Cork Leg, 413 Index Expurgatorius Burial-ground in Portugal Street Raphael's Cartoons "Week-end," 414.

NOTES ON BOOKS: -Lady Dilke's 'French Furniture and Decoration in the Eighteenth Century' Dickens's ' Pickwick Papers ' Chears ' History of Ditchling ' ' The Nation's Pictures.'

Notices to Correspondents.

BEAULIEU AS A PLACE-NAME. .

(See 9 th S. vi. 87, 216.)

THE name Beaulieu, or its Latin equivalent Bellus Locus, or in the British Islands the anglicized form Bewley, has been from time to time so frequently applied to monastic or ecclesiastical sites that it may be of interest to attempt to ascertain its origin and trace its use.

In A.D. 855 an abbey was founded by Rodulfe, Archbishop of Bourges, a son of the Cprnte de Turenne, in an obscure village of Limousin called Vellinus. When choosing the site of the new religious house on his own domains at the entrance to a smiling valley, watered by the Dordogne, and pro- tected on the north and south by lofty hills planted with vines and fruit trees, the noble prelate gave it from the beauty of its position the name of Bellus Locus, from which in course of time were derived successively elloc, Belluec'\i\ the Limousin dialect Bellec or Belle and the modern Beaulieu (' Cartu- laire de 1'Abbaye de Beaulieu [en Limousin],' par Maximin Deloche, p. xiii).

In the month of November, 860, in the presence of two bishops, three abbots, the

Comte de Toulouse, and a numerous assem- blage of clergy and members of the family of Turenue, Archbishop Rodulfe solemnly dedicated the monastery. It was placed under the rule of St. Benedict and under the invocation of St. Peter, whence it became thereafter known as S. Petrus de Bello Loco or St. Pierre de Beaulieu.

The abbey, magnificently endowed by its founder as well as by the Counts of Turenne and neighbouring proprietors, received also various benefits and immunities from the sovereigns of Aquitaine. Numerous villages, chateaux, churches, chapels, and oratories came also, through the largess of the faithful, to increase the patrimony of the community. A number of secondary houses submitting to its rule were administered by monks dele- gated by the abbot, and ultimately took the name of priories. In the latter half of the tenth century the abbey had attained a very remarkable degree of prosperity, and its possessions extended over Le Bas Limousin (now the department of Correze), of which it held almost one-third, and the north of Quercy (now the department of Lot). In this way the name Bellus Locus became widely known and acquired a high repute.

This is the earliest use of Bellus Locus as a place-name that I have been able to dis- cover, and it appears to have been chosen by the founder of the abbey as descriptive of the locality.*

Another Benedictine monastery of still older foundation came also to be called Bellus Locus. About trie year 642 Rodingus (known in later times as St. Rouin), an Irish monk, coming to '"(fetal shortly after Columbanus, founded a Monastery in the forests of the Argonne, about seven leagues from Verdun, in a place originally called Waslogium, but some centuries later known as Bellus Locus : " Se recepit in locum Waslogium quern posteri mutato nomine Bellum Locum ob pulcher- rimum si turn loci yocare maluerunt " ('Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti,' by J. Mabillon, tome i. p. 352 ; ' Gallia Christiana,' second edition, tome xiii. 1264).

The period at which the name of Bellus Locus became attached to the monastery cannot now be ascertained, but it was pro- bably some time after the foundation of the abbey of Bellus Locus in Limousin. It had got that name when the * Chronicon Vir-

autein Bellus Locus nominator" ('Gallia Chris- tiana,' first edition, tome iv. p. 147 ; * Cartulaire de 1'Abbaye de Beaulieu,' p. 2). The instrument of foundation contains also a gift of a parcel of land called Bellus Mons.
 * " Qui locus nuper a rusticis Vellinus a nobis