[159] Gelt was a tax of 2s. on each carucate, or 120 acres.
[160] It is customary to speak of Revesby Abbey as the monastery of St. Laurence, but it would also appear at an early period to have been dedicated to the Virgin Mother as well; for, while the inscription on the tomb of the founder, as given above, mentions only St. Laurence, Dugdale in his “Monasticon” (p. 531), calls it “the Monastery of our blessed Lady the Virgin, and St. Lawrans.” Further, one impression of the Abbey seal is preserved in the office of the Duchy of Lancaster, and another at the British Museum; and they are inscribed “Sigillum Abbatis d’ St. Laurentio”; but there is also in the British Museum, a seal of “Henry, Abbot of St. Mary’s;” and another of “the Abbey and Convent of St. Mary,” is among the Harleian Charters (44, z 2), and both the latter have, as part of their device, the Virgin, crowned, holding the Infant Christ in her arms.
[161] It is curious to find a Doctor among the slaves, he may have been a foster-brother to one of better birth. Barcaria, in Monkish Latin meant a tanning house (from “bark,”) or a sheep-fold, Norman French, “Bergerie,” and Barkarius may have been a tanner or shepherd.
[164] I am indebted for these details to the accounts printed by the late E. Stanhope, for private circulation, and the Revesby deeds and charters, which he recovered, and also printed.
[166] Saunders in his “History of Lincolnshire,” 1836, gives the patron of Revesby as Revd. C. N. L’oste. This, however, is an error, that gentleman being chaplain in 1831, and there then being no residence he resided at Horncastle, as many other country incumbents did at that time. The L’ostes held various preferments in this neighbourhood for more than one generation. In 1706, before the Banks family owned Revesby, the Revd. C. L’oste held the Rectory of Langton-by-Horncastle. He was a man of some attainments, and published a poetical translation of Grotius on the Christian Religion, which the writer of these notes possesses. Another L’oste, at that date resided in Louth; and, within living memory, another of the name resided in Horncastle.
[178] The Pelhams of old were a martial family. At the battle of Poitiers, the King of France surrendered to John de Pelham, and this badge was adopted by him as representing the sword-belt buckle of the defeated monarch, and became conspicuous on their residences, or in the churches which they endowed.
[181] For an interesting life of Mr. Hanserd Knollys, see Crosby’s “History of English Baptists,” vol. i, p. 334, &c.
[182] Odo was the son of Herluin de Contaville and Arlette, coucubine of Robert, Duke of Normandy, so that Odo and the Conqueror were sons of the same mother. The Earl of Moretaine, and Adeliza, Countess d’ Aumaile, were his brother and sister.
[184] It has been suggested that this represented Belshazzar’s Feast (“Architect. S. Journal,” 1858, p. lxxiii), but this would hardly be in keeping with the other subjects.
[185] The next ford on the Witham, southward, was Kirkstead wharf, or more properly “wath,” which is still the local pronunciation; “wath,” meaning “ford,” corresponding to the Latin “vadum,” and related to our word to “wade,” or “ford,” a stream, &c. There is a village called Wath in Yorkshire, which is near a ford or causeway over a Marsh. (“Archit. Journ.” xiii, p. 75).