"A sneer probably upon Clifford, Ashley, Burlington, Arlington, Lauderdale, who were called the CABAL in King Charles II.'s time, from the initial letters of their names.—See Echard, vol. iii. p. 251."
Your correspondent E. H. D. D. may be glad of these two quotations, and I quite agree with him in ascribing an earlier date than that mentioned by Burnet to the word "cabal" in the sense of "a secret council." The transition from its original sense was easy and natural, and the application to King Charles's confidential advisers ingenious.
RT.
Warmington.
Rectitudines Singularum Personarum (Vol. iv., p. 442.).
—In reply to the inquiries of H. C. C., let me refer him to pp. xi. and xxv. of the preface and list of MSS. in vol. i. of the Ancient Laws, &c. of England, edited by Mr. Thorpe, under the direction of the late Record Commission. He will there find that the real MS. site of that document is stated to be in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, and to be of the date of the tenth century. It is not stated upon what ground so early a date is assigned to it; but as so competent a judge as the editor seems to give that date without any expression of doubt, we may presume that there is satisfactory proof of the fact. I do not observe the document mentioned in Wanley's catalogue, and Nasmith's more recent one is not at hand to refer to. The matter contained in it does not (at least in my judgment) necessarily indicate so early a date, inasmuch as parallel, and even identical, rights and customs, connected with the status of persons and tenure of land, were in active existence at a much later period of our history. It would certainly be more satisfactory to know the precise grounds, whether extrinsic or intrinsic, on which the date has been fixed.
With regard to the old Latin version, I will not undertake to vindicate it except against one of the criticisms of H. C. C. He objects that læden is translated minare. The word "minare" is used in the translation twice, once for driving, and once for leading; and I question whether the translator could have found a more appropriate word to serve this double purpose than the authentic verb menare or minare, from which the French mener has been derived.
I cannot so easily justify him for translating "bôc-riht" by "rectitudo testamenti;" yet as the power of testamentary disposition was one of the most signal attributes of bôc-riht, I cannot say that he has much misrepresented the import of the original word.
The document, which is evidently a private compilation, seems to be a custumal, or coustumier, of a district, or some considerable portion of the country. The German lawyers would call the collection a landrecht in one sense of that term, or, as the translator has called it, a "landirectum." The heading is by no means an appropriate one. Whether the writer intended to compile a code of the customs and obligations of land tenure, free and unfree, coextensive with the Saxon name, or merely to represent those of a certain district with which he happened to be acquainted, is a matter open to question.
H. C. C. is perhaps not aware that the document has been examined, corrected, translated into German, and made the subject of a very masterly dissertation, by Dr. Heinrich Leo, of Halle. It is frequently referred to by Lappenberg in his Anglo-Saxon History, and became known (at least in the translation) to Sir H. Ellis in time to make copious extracts from it in the second volume of his Introduction to Domesday.