The story of Coventry

by Mary Dormer Harris

[5] Poole, Coventry, 90. Elizabeth visited the city in 1565.

[6] Polyolbion, xiii.

[7] Some rough (?) Roman pavement was discovered in the Cross Cheaping during excavations at the end of the last century. Victoria County Hist. i. 246.

[8] Rashdall, Universities, ii. pt. ii. 323.

[9] Dugdale. Warw. i. 134.

[10] Ibid.

[11] A convent is properly a body of monks or nuns; a monastery or nunnery their habitation. The etymology of Coventry is dubious; but the popular derivation from the Lat. conventus is now discredited. The earliest form in which the word occurs is Cofantreo. Here treo = tree, and Dr Hen. Bradley, to whom I am greatly indebted for information on this point, suggests a possible origin of the other syllables in a personal name, Cofa or Cufa; cf. Oswestry = Oswald's tree.

[12] See Matt. v. 20. This translation mainly follows Birch.

[13] Privilege of administering justice.

[14] Obscure. Birch says privilege of vouching to warranty.