"This year (1200), Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, held a National Synod at Westminster, notwithstanding the prohibition of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, Earl of Essex, and Chief Justiciary of England."—Collier's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. folio, p. 410.
I shall be glad if any of your readers can throw farther light on the passage.
W. Fraser.
Tor-Mohun.
Veneration for the Oak (Vol. viii., p. 468.).—Since my Query upon this matter appeared, I find that Mr. Layard, in his work upon Nineveh and Babylon, at p. 160., describes a cylinder of green felspar, which he believes to have been the signet of Sennacherib, and upon which is engraved a rare mode of portraying the supreme deity, and a sacred tree, whose flowers are in this instance in the shape of an acorn. Whence did the Assyrians derive this veneration for a tree bearing acorns? Did they derive this notion, as they did their tin, from Celtic Britain? I believe they did.
G. W.
Stansted, Montfichet.
Rapping no Novelty (Vol. viii., p. 512.).—De Foe, in his veracious History of Mr. Duncan Campbell (2nd ed., p. 107.), quotes a story of sprit-knocking from "the renowned and famous" Mr. Baxter's History of Apparitions, prefacing it thus:
"What in nature can be more trivial than for a spirit to employ himself in knocking on a morning at the wainscot by the bed's head of a man who got drunk over night, according to the way that such things are ordinarily explained? And yet I shall give you such a relation of this, that not even the most devout and precise Presbyterian will offer to call in question."
According to De Foe, Mr. Baxter gave full credit to the story, adding many pious reflections upon the subject, and expressing himself "posed to think what kind of spirit this is."