Replies.
CORPSE PASSING MAKES A RIGHT WAY.
(Vol. iii., p. 477.)
The fact of the passage of a funeral procession over land, from being an act of user of a very public character, must always have had some influence on the trial of the question whether the owner of the land had dedicated the same to the public; and it is not improbable that in early times very great weight was attached to evidence of this kind: so that the passage of a corpse across land came to be considered in the popular mind as conclusive and incontrovertible evidence of a public right of way over that land. With the reverence for the dead which is so pleasing a characteristic of modern refinement, it is probable that acts of user of this description would now have little weight, inasmuch as no man of right feeling would be disposed to interrupt parties assembled on so mournful and solemn an occasion. I recollect, however, having read a trial in modern times for a riot, arising out of a forcible attempt to carry a corpse over a field against the will of the landowner; the object of the parties in care of the corpse was believed to be the establishment of a public right of way over the field in question, the owner of which, with a body of partisans, forcibly resisted the attempt, on the apparent belief that the act of carrying a corpse across the field would certainly have established the right claimed. I regret I did not "make a Note" of the case, so as to be able to specify the time, place, and circumstances with certainty.
That the notion in question is of great antiquity may I think be inferred from the following passage in Prynne's Records, iii. 213., referring to Walter Bronescombe, Bishop of Exeter, 1258-1280 (and as the authority for which, Prynne cites Holinshed's Chronicle, 1303, 1304; and Godwin's Catalogue of Bishops, 326.):—
"He did by a Policy purchase the Lordship and House of Clift Sachfeld, and enlarged the Barton thereof by gaining of Cornish Wood from the Dean and Chapter fraudulently; building then a very fair and sumptuous house there; he called it Bishop's Clift, and left the same to his successors. Likewise he got the Patronage of Clift Fomesone, now called Sowton, and annexed the same to his new Lordship, which (as it was said) he procured by this means. He had a Frier to be his Chaplain and Confessor, which died in his said House of Clift, and should have been buried at the Parish Church of Faringdon, because the said House was and is in that Parish; but because the Parish Church was somewhat farre off, the wayes foul, and the weather rainy, or for some other causes, the Bishop commanded the corps to be carryed to the parish church of Sowton, then called Clift Fomeson, which is very near, and bordereth upon the Bishop's Lordship; the two Parishes being then divided by a little Lake called Clift. At this time one Fomeson, a Gentleman, was Lord and Patron of Clift Fomeson; and he, being advertised of such a Burial towards in his Parish, and a leech way to be made over to his Land, without his leave or consent required therein; calleth his Tenants together, goeth to the Bridge over the lake between the Bishop's Land and his; there meeteth the Bishop's men, bringing the said Corps, and forbiddeth them to come over the water. The men nothing regarding the Prohibition, do press forwards to come over the water, and the others do withstand, so long, that in the end, my Lord's Fryer is fallen into the Water. The Bishop taketh this matter in such grief, that a holy Fryer, a Religious man, his own Chaplain and Confessor, should be so unreverently cast into the Water, that he falleth out with the Gentleman, and upon what occasion I know not, he sueth him in the Law (in his own Ecclesiastical Court, where he was both party and Judge), and so vexeth and tormenteth him, that in the end he was fain to yeeld himself to the Bishop's devotion, and seeketh all the wayes he could to carry the Bishop's good will, which he could not obtain, until for redemption he had given up and surrendered his patronage of Sowton, with a piece of land; all which the said Bishop annexed to his new Lordship."
In "An Exhortation, to be spoken to such Parishes where they use their Perambulation in Rogation Week; for the Oversight of the Bounds and Limits of their Town," is a curious passage, which I subjoin:
"It is a shame to behold the insatiableness of some covetous persons in their doings; that where their ancestors left of their land a broad and sufficient bier-balk, to carry the corpse to the Christian sepulture, how men pinch at such bier-balks, which by long use and custom ought to be inviolably kept for that purpose; and now they quite eat them up, and turn the dead body to be borne farther about in the high streets; or else, if they leave any such meer, it is too straight for two to walk on."—Homilies, ed. Corrie, p. 499.
It may perhaps be considered not quite irrelevant here to state that there seems once to have been an opinion, that the passage of the sovereign across land had the effect of making a highway thereon. The only allusion, however, to this opinion which I can call to mind, occurs in Peck's Antiquarian Annals of Stanford, lib. xi. s. xii.; an extract from which follows:—
"From Stanford King Edward, as I conceive, went to Huntingdon; for in a letter of one of our kings dated at that town the 12th of July (without any year or king's name to ascertain the time and person it belongs to), the King writes to the aldermen and bailiffs of Stanford, acquainting them, that, when he came to Stanford, he went through Pilsgate field (coming then I suppose from Peterborough), and, it being usual it seems that whatever way the King rides to any place (though the same was no public way before) for everybody else to claim the same liberty afterwards, and thenceforth to call any such new passage the King's highway; being followed to Huntingdon by divers of his own tenants, inhabitants of Pilsgate, who then and there represented the damage they should sustain by such a practice, the King by his letters immediately commanded that his passing that way should not be made a precedent for other people's so doing, but did utterly forbid and discharge them therefrom. His letter, directed 'to our dearly beloved the alderman, bailiffs, and good people of our Town of Stanford,' upon this occasion, is thus worded:—'Dear and well-beloved friends, by the grievous complaint of our beloved lieges and tenents of the town of Pillesyate near our town of Staunford, we have understood, that, in as much as, on Tuesday last, we passed through the middle of a meadow and a certain pasture there called Pillesyate meadow appertaining to the said town of Pillesyate, you, and others of the country circumjacent, claim to have and use an high way royal to pass through the middle of the said meadow and pasture, to the great damage and disseisin of our said lieges and tenents, whereupon they have supplicated for a remedy; so we will, if it be so, and we command and charge firmly, that you neither make nor use, nor suffer to be made nor used by others of our said town of Staunford, nor others whatsoever, no high road through the middle of the said meadow and pasture; but that you forbear from it entirely, and that you cause it to be openly proclaimed in our said town, that all others of our said town and the country round it, do likewise; to the end that our said tenents may have and peaceably enjoy the said meadow and pasture, so, and in the manner, as they have done before these times, without disturbance or impeachment of you or others, of what estate or condition soever they be, notwithstanding that we passed that way in manner as is said. And this in no manner fail ye. Given under our signet at Huntyngdon the 12th day of July.'"
I am unable to say whether the opinion it was the object of the above royal letter to refute was general, or was peculiar to the "good people" of Stanford, "and others of the country circumjacent."
C. H. COOPER.
Cambridge, June 18. 1851.
DOZEN OF BREAD; BAKER'S DOZEN
(Vol. ii., p. 298.; Vol iii., p. 153.).
From the following extracts from two of the "Bury Wills" recently published by the Camden Society, it would appear that a dozen of bread always consisted of twelve loaves; and that the term "Baker's dozen" arose from the practice of giving, in addition to the twelve loaves, a further quantity as "inbread," in the same manner as it is (or until recently was) the custom to give an extra bushel of coals as "ingrain" upon the sale of a large quantity; a chaldron, I believe.
Francis Pynner, of Bury, Gent., by will, dated April 26, 1639, gave to feoffees certain property upon trust (inter alia) out of the rents, upon the last Friday in every month in the year, to provide one twopenny loaf for each of forty poor people in Bury, to be distributed by the clerk, sexton, and beadle of St. Mary's parish, who were to have the "inbread of the said bread." And the testator also bequeathed certain other property to feoffees upon trust to employ the rents as follows (that is to say):—
"The yerely sūme of ffiue pounds p'cell of the said yerely rents to be bestowed in wheaten bread, to be made into penny loaves, and upon eu'y Lord's day, called Sonday, throughout eu'y yere of the said terme [40 years or thereabouts], fowre and twenty loaves of the said bread, wth the inbread allowed by the baker for those twoe dosens of bread, to be timely brought and sett vpon a forme towards the vpp' end of the chancell of the said p'ish church of St. Marie, and ... the same twoe dosens of bread to be giuen and distributed ... to and amongst fowre and twentie poore people ... the p'ish clarke and sexton of the said church, and the beadle of the said p'ish of St. Marie for the time then being, shall alwaies be three wch from time to time shall haue their shares and parts in the said bread. And they, the said clarke, sexton, and bedell, shall alwaies haue the inbread of all the bread aforesaid ovr and besides their shares in the said twoe dosens of bread from time to time——"
And William Fiske, of Pakenham, Gent., by will, dated March 20, 1648, provided twelvepence a week to pay weekly for one dozen of bread which his mind was, should "be weekly given vnto twelue or thirteene" persons therein referred to.
J. B. COLMAN.
Eye, June 16. 1851.
MOSAIC.
(Vol. iii., p. 389.)
Among the various kinds of picturesque representation, practised by the Greeks and Romans, and transmitted by them to after times, is that of Mosaic, a mode of execution which, in its durability of form, and permanency of colour, possesses distinguished advantages, being unaffected by heat or cold, drought or moisture, and perishing only with the building to which it has been originally attached. This art has been known in Rome since the days of the Republic. The severer rulers of that period forbade the introduction of foreign marbles, and the republican mosaics are all in black and white. Under the Empire the art was greatly improved, and not merely by the introduction of marbles of various colours, but by the invention of artificial stones, termed by the Italians Smalti, which can be made of every variety of tint. This art was never entirely lost. On the introduction of pictures into Christian temples, they were first made of mosaic: remaining specimens of them are rude, but profoundly interesting in an historical point of view. When art was restored in Italy, mosaic also was improved; but it attained its greatest perfection in the last and present century. Roman mosaic, as now practised, may be described as being the production of pictures by connecting together numerous minute pieces of coloured marble or artificial stones. These are attached to a ground of copper, by means of a strong cement of gum mastic, and other materials, and are afterwards ground and polished, as a stone would be, to a perfectly level surface. By this art not only are ornaments made on a small scale, but pictures of the largest size are copied. The most remarkable modern works are the copies which have been executed of some of the most important works of the great masters, for the altars in St. Peter's. These are, in every respect, perfect imitations of the originals; and when the originals, in spite of every care, must change and perish, these mosaics will still convey to distant ages a perfect idea of the triumphs of art achieved in the fifteenth century. Twenty years were employed in making one of the copies I have mentioned. The pieces of mosaic vary in size from an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch, and eleven men were employed for that time on each picture. A great improvement was introduced into the art in 1775, by Signor Raffaeli, who thought of preparing the smalti in what may be termed fine threads. The pastes or smalti are manufactured at Venice, in the shape of crayons, or like sticks of sealing-wax, and are afterwards drawn out by the workman, by a blowpipe, into the thickness he requires, often almost to an hair, and are seldom thicker than the finest grass stalk. For tables, and large articles, of course, the pieces are thicker; but the beauty of the workmanship, the soft gradation of the tints, and the cost, depend upon the minuteness of the pieces, and the skill displayed by the artist. A ruin, a group of flowers or figures, will employ a good artist about two months, when only two inches square; and a specimen of such a description costs from 5l. to 20l., according to the execution: a landscape, six inches by four, would require eighteen months, and would cost from 40l. to 50l. For a picture of Pæstum, eight feet long by twenty inches broad, on which four men were occupied for three years, 1000l. sterling was asked. The mosaic work of Florence differs entirely from Roman mosaic, being composed of stones inserted in comparatively large masses. It is called work in pietra dura; the stones used are all of a more or less precious nature. In old specimens, the most beautiful works are those in which the designs are of an arabesque character. The most remarkable specimen of this description of pietra dura, is an octagonal table, in the Gubinetto di Baroccio, in the Florence Gallery. It is valued at 20,000l. sterling, and was commenced in 1623 by Jacopo Detelli, from designs by Ligozzi. Twenty-two artists worked upon it without interruption till it was terminated, in the year 1649.
One principal distinction between the ancient and modern mosaic is, I believe, that the former was arranged in patterns, the latter coloured in shades. I shall not take up your columns by dwelling on the ancient mosaic, which, as all know was in use among the Orientals, especially the Persians and Assyrians; and from the Easterns the Greeks received the art. In the Book of Esther, i. 6., we have an allusion to a mosaic pavement; and Schleusner understands the Λιθόστρωτον of St. John, xix. 13., to mean a sort of elevated mosaic pavement. Andrea Tafi, towards the close of the thirteenth century, is said to have revived this art in Italy, having learned it from a Greek named Apollonius, who worked at the church of St. Mark at Venice, and to have been the founder of the modern mosaic.
Now for the derivation. The Lithostrata, or tesselated pavements of the Romans, being worked in a regular and mechanical manner, were called opus musivum, opera qua ad amussim facta sunt. Hence the Italian musaico, from whence is derived our appellation of mosaic; but, like most of our arts, through the channel of the French mosaïque. (Vide Pitisci Lexicon, ii. 242.; Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de Medici; Winkelman; Pompeiana, by Gell; Smith's Greek and Roman Antiq.; Beckman's Inventions; and Récherches sur la Peinture en Mosaïque chez les Anciens, &c., annexed to his Description d'un Pavé en Mosaïque, &c.: Paris, 1802.)
GERONIMO.