Antiquarian Correspondence.
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DR. FRANCIS MALLETT.
Sir,—Dr. Francis Mallett, Vicar of Rothwell, near Leeds, instituted 7 January, 1533, is styled in the church register, “Magister Franciscus Malett: Sacre Theologie Doctor.” He resigned this living before 1547. In the catalogue of vicars, he is designated “Mr. Francis Malett, cap.” (capellanus or chaplain).
In a sketch of the life of Arthur Yeldard, one of the first Fellows of Trinity College, Oxford, founded by Sir Thomas Pope, it is stated that Mr. Yeldard, while at Cambridge (in 1553) for his better support in study, received an annual exhibition from the Princess, afterwards Queen, Mary, by the hands of Dr. Francis Mallet, her chaplain and confessor, the last master of Michael House in Cambridge, and dean of Lincoln.
Again, I find that a Dr. Francis Mallett, as master of St. Katherine’s Hospital,[34] offered to resign the mastership in 1559.
On December 18, 1573, a “Dr. Mallett” was buried at Normanton, and it is remarked in the parish register that there remained unpaid for his burial in the church, 3s. 4d.
I wish to ascertain, if possible, whether the instances given refer to one and the same man or no; and if so, whether he was a member of the ancient family of the Mallets of Normanton, in Yorkshire.
John Batty.
East Ardsley, near Wakefield.
ARMS OF JOSUAH BARNES.
Sir,—I send you a description of the armorial plate, dated 1700, of Josuah Barnes, who was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge in 1695, and of whom Bentley said that he knew as much Greek as an Athenian cobbler. (1) For Greek Professor—Argent and sable, party per chevron: in first, the letters Alpha and Omega sable; in second, a grasshopper argent. On a chief gules a lion passant guardant or, impaling (2) Barnes—Argent, a lion rampant gules, crowned; in dexter chief a mullet; a chief or. The crown and mullet have no tincture marked.
The crest over a healm (an owl argent on a wreath argent and sable) and the mantelling (gules doubled argent) are those of the Greek Professor. Below is the motto—
“Hæc mihi musa dedit
Vix ea nostra voco;”
and under this—
“Josua Barnes, S. T. B. Græc. Ling. Cantab.
Prof. Reg. Eman. Coll. Soc. 1700.”
According to grant of arms to the five Regius Professors, the lion passant guardant is marked in his side with the letter G sable, and the owl has its legs, ears, and beak or.
J. Hamblin Smith.
Woodbridge, Suffolk.
PORTS AND CHESTERS.
(See ante, pp. 47, 96.)
Sir,—Mr. Round adds nothing of value to what has gone before.
(1) As to the alleged “borrowing,” the word port must, on Mr. Round’s own showing, have been taken up, adopted, or borrowed by the so-called English pirates, before they incorporated it into their language; the question is, when?
Bosworth says that A.S. port means town in English, but that scholar has now fallen into discredit, for others doubt or deny his accuracy; further, we find it used as a compound, thus: portreeve, portsoken, portman. Portreeve is, I affirm, by transition from the Latin portus. The port of London extends from Yanlett Creek to Staines, so that the “city” itself is dwarfed by the larger jurisdiction appended to it; we can readily explain the anomaly, but the usage appears to have extended to other places where the hythe or haven, i.e., boat-shelter, is not so clearly marked and then the word is thrust back upon us in a sense that we repudiate.
It is further complicated with “gate” or “doorway”; portsoken, for, instance, means a liberty outside the gate or port of Aldgate, and in many northern towns where the Danes settled in force, we find the word port used for gate, as thus: Westport, Eastport, but it is not to be read as west or east-town; so the portman might mean a burgess told off to keep watch and ward over any particular gate of his own town; just as we have “wards,” i.e. guards, in London, originally confined to gates but extended to intermediate parts of the entire wall, for that was the primitive arrangement.
The Viking invaders used boats that could be pushed up comparatively narrow streams, and it might be contended that any inland place thus reached would be a port of debarkation.
(2) My word “ramify” expresses a real difficulty; I did try to spread out or extend Mr. Round’s argument under its different heads and branches, i.e., to follow up the various ramifications of his literary matter, with a view to the extraction of a tangible meaning; and I still contend that his words do imply that caer was put for castrum; but it is certain that this “native form” was unknown on the south-eastern coast, for the transliteration shows that the Romans met with dune or dinas, not caer or ker.
A. Hall.
A BAKER BLESSED.
(See ante, p. 44.)
Sir,—Will Mr. Hussey take a suggestion for a half-answer to his query? It may possibly put him on the track of the origin of the lines that he quotes:—
In “Hamlet,” Ophelia says: “The owl was a baker’s daughter.” The ideas floating through her mind are connected with St. Valentine’s Day.
Grimm gives a story that “the cuckoo was a baker’s (or miller’s) man, and that is why he wears a dingy meal-sprinkled coat. In a dear season he robbed the poor of their flour, and when God was blessing the dough in the oven, he would take it out, and pull lumps out of it, crying every time, ‘Guk-guk,’ look, look; therefore the Lord punished him by changing him into a bird of prey, which incessantly repeats that cry.” This story, Grimm says, is doubtless very ancient, and was once told very differently. “That ‘dear season’ may have to do with the belief that when the Cuckoo’s call continues to be heard after midsummer, it betokens dearth.”
Again Grimm alludes to one of the many superstitions concerning the cuckoo in spring, and says that in some districts a rhyme runs thus:
“Kukuk beckenknecht
Sag mir recht,
Wie viel jar (jahr) ich leben soll.”
Here the idea of the baker is brought in.
Grimm gives a story of the woodpecker, which has also to do with the baking element. A combination of the Scandinavian with the saint-legendary element.
In Norway the red-hooded blackpecker is called Gertrude’s fowl, and the origin is thus explained. The story will be found in Mr. Stallybrass’ translation of Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythology” (see vol. ii. p. 673), together with much curious information concerning rhymes and charms, which may possibly be of some help to Mr. Hussey in his researches for origins of curious old rhymes and verses.
J. G.
AN ARCHÆOLOGICAL DISCOVERY.
Sir,—A find of some archæological interest was made a few days ago in the churchyard of Hitcham, Bucks. In digging a grave on the south side of the (Norman) nave, a stone cist, or sarcophagus, was discovered 4 ft. 6 in. from the present surface. Fourteen years ago a similar cist was found; with the remains were a quantity of iron rings, 1¼ in. diameter, and iron nails, but no other indication of there having been a coffin. The head of the present cist was then brought to view, but not disturbed. The inside dimensions of the present cist were 6 ft. in length, 12 in. wide at the head, and 8 in. at the foot; 19 in. at its greatest width. The south side was composed of 5 slabs, the north side of 6; the covering slabs were 5 in number; also 1 at the head and foot—18 stones in all, 13 in. deep at the head and 12 in. at the foot; the side stones averaging 4 in. and the covering stones 5½ in. in thickness. The chalk or claunch stones of which the cist is composed were rudely squared and hewn or axed on all sides with a tool 1 in. wide, and rounded on the edge; one other tool 3 in. in width, the axe marks being sharp and clearly defined. A large and perfect skeleton was enclosed, but no trace of a coffin, wood or metal. The bed or floor of the grave was composed of fine gravel-pit sand. The bones were considerably crystallised; probably the body was covered with carbonate of lime. The skull bore traces of having lain in a liquid; it was very friable, and crumbled at the touch; the femur measured 18½ in. in length. Llewellyn Jewitt says: “The mode of burial seems this: when the body was placed in the stone cist, or sarcophagus, it was fully draped in its usual dress. It was laid flat upon its back, at full length, at the bottom of the cist; any relics intended to be buried with it were placed by its side. Liquid lime or gypsum was then poured in, upon, and around it, the face alone being left uncovered by the liquid. The body was thus completely (with the exception of the face) encased in liquid lime, which, when it became set, formed a solid mass. When these are brought to light and opened, a perfect impression or mould of the figure of the deceased appears on the bed of plaster or lime in which it had been enclosed, and, in some instances, the texture, and even the colours of the dress is clearly defined. Some years ago a cist was opened at York, in which the body of a woman clothed in rich purple, with a small child laid upon her lap, was clearly discernible in the plaster.”
Whether this was an interment of the Roman-British or Anglo-Saxon period the orientation was very decided in this case, as in the five others I have seen in this spot, they all lying due east and west. Two-thirds in length of this very interesting relic had to be removed to obtain the depth required for the new grave. I collected the bones and placed them in the remaining third portion left undisturbed.
JAMES RUTLAND,
Hon. Sec. Berks Archæological and Architectural
Society, and Maidenhead Field
Club and Thames Valley Antiquarian
Society.
The Gables, Taplow,
August, 1884.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
The Editor declines to pledge himself for the safety or return of MSS. voluntarily tendered to him by strangers.
The continuation of Mr. J. H. Round’s paper on “Port and Port-Reeve” is unavoidably postponed to our next.
