A query should always be worded with care, and put in a quotable shape. The observance of this plain rule would economise space, save the time which might otherwise be occupied in useless research, and tend to produce more pertinency of reply. The first and second of the above queries may serve as models.
Bolton Corney.
REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.
Old Auster Tenement (No. 14. p. 217.).—I think that I am in a condition to throw some light on the meaning of this expression, noticed in a former Number by "W.P.P." The tenements held in villenage of the lord of a manor, at least where they consisted of a messuage or dwelling-house, are often called astra in our older books and court-rolls. If the tenement was an ancient one, it was vetus or antiquum astrum; if a tenure of recent creation (or a new-take, as it is called in some manors), it was novum astrum. The villenage tenant of it was an astrarius. "W.P.P." may satisfy himself of these facts by referring to the printed Plautorum Abbrevietis, fo. 282.; to Fleta, Comment. Juris. Anglicani, ed. 1685, p. 217.; and to Ducange, Spelman, and Cowel, under the words "Astrum," "Astrarius," and "Astre." In the very locality to which "W.P.P." refers, he will find that the word "Auster" is "Astrum" in the oldest court-rolls, and that the term is not confined to North Curry, but is very prevalent in the eastern half of Somerset. At the present day, an auster tenement is a species of copyhold, with all the incidents to that tenure. It is noticed in the Journal of the Archæological Institute, in a recent critique on Dr. Evans's Leicestershire words, and is very familar to legal practitioners of any experience in the district alluded to.
E. Smirke.
Tureen (No. 16. p. 246.).—There is properly no such word. It is a corruption of the French terrine, an earthen vessel in which soup is served. It is in Bailey's Dictionary. I take this opportunity of suggesting whether that the word "swinging," applied by Goldsmith to his tureen, should be rather spelt swingeing; though the former is the more usual way: a swinging dish and a swingeing are different things, and Goldsmith meant the latter.
C.
Burning the Dead.—"T." will find some information on this subject in Sir Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia, chap. i., which appears to favour his view except in the following extract: