In "An Exhortation, to be spoken to such Parishes where they use their Perambulation in Rogation Week; for the Oversight of the Bounds and Limits of their Town," is a curious passage, which I subjoin:
"It is a shame to behold the insatiableness of some covetous persons in their doings; that where their ancestors left of their land a broad and sufficient bier-balk, to carry the corpse to the Christian sepulture, how men pinch at such bier-balks, which by long use and custom ought to be inviolably kept for that purpose; and now they quite eat them up, and turn the dead body to be borne farther about in the high streets; or else, if they leave any such meer, it is too straight for two to walk on."—Homilies, ed. Corrie, p. 499.
It may perhaps be considered not quite irrelevant here to state that there seems once to have been an opinion, that the passage of the sovereign across land had the effect of making a highway thereon. The only allusion, however, to this opinion which I can call to mind, occurs in Peck's Antiquarian Annals of Stanford, lib. xi. s. xii.; an extract from which follows:—
"From Stanford King Edward, as I conceive, went to Huntingdon; for in a letter of one of our kings dated at that town the 12th of July (without any year or king's name to ascertain the time and person it belongs to), the King writes to the aldermen and bailiffs of Stanford, acquainting them, that, when he came to Stanford, he went through Pilsgate field (coming then I suppose from Peterborough), and, it being usual it seems that whatever way the King rides to any place (though the same was no public way before) for everybody else to claim the same liberty afterwards, and thenceforth to call any such new passage the King's highway; being followed to Huntingdon by divers of his own tenants, inhabitants of Pilsgate, who then and there represented the damage they should sustain by such a practice, the King by his letters immediately commanded that his passing that way should not be made a precedent for other people's so doing, but did utterly forbid and discharge them therefrom. His letter, directed 'to our dearly beloved the alderman, bailiffs, and good people of our Town of Stanford,' upon this occasion, is thus worded:—'Dear and well-beloved friends, by the grievous complaint of our beloved lieges and tenents of the town of Pillesyate near our town of Staunford, we have understood, that, in as much as, on Tuesday last, we passed through the middle of a meadow and a certain pasture there called Pillesyate meadow appertaining to the said town of Pillesyate, you, and others of the country circumjacent, claim to have and use an high way royal to pass through the middle of the said meadow and pasture, to the great damage and disseisin of our said lieges and tenents, whereupon they have supplicated for a remedy; so we will, if it be so, and we command and charge firmly, that you neither make nor use, nor suffer to be made nor used by others of our said town of Staunford, nor others whatsoever, no high road through the middle of the said meadow and pasture; but that you forbear from it entirely, and that you cause it to be openly proclaimed in our said town, that all others of our said town and the country round it, do likewise; to the end that our said tenents may have and peaceably enjoy the said meadow and pasture, so, and in the manner, as they have done before these times, without disturbance or impeachment of you or others, of what estate or condition soever they be, notwithstanding that we passed that way in manner as is said. And this in no manner fail ye. Given under our signet at Huntyngdon the 12th day of July.'"
I am unable to say whether the opinion it was the object of the above royal letter to refute was general, or was peculiar to the "good people" of Stanford, "and others of the country circumjacent."
C. H. COOPER.
Cambridge, June 18. 1851.
DOZEN OF BREAD; BAKER'S DOZEN
(Vol. ii., p. 298.; Vol iii., p. 153.).
From the following extracts from two of the "Bury Wills" recently published by the Camden Society, it would appear that a dozen of bread always consisted of twelve loaves; and that the term "Baker's dozen" arose from the practice of giving, in addition to the twelve loaves, a further quantity as "inbread," in the same manner as it is (or until recently was) the custom to give an extra bushel of coals as "ingrain" upon the sale of a large quantity; a chaldron, I believe.
Francis Pynner, of Bury, Gent., by will, dated April 26, 1639, gave to feoffees certain property upon trust (inter alia) out of the rents, upon the last Friday in every month in the year, to provide one twopenny loaf for each of forty poor people in Bury, to be distributed by the clerk, sexton, and beadle of St. Mary's parish, who were to have the "inbread of the said bread." And the testator also bequeathed certain other property to feoffees upon trust to employ the rents as follows (that is to say):—