Cimmerii, Cimbri (Vol. iv., p. 444.).
—If the belief which derives the Cimbrians from Gomer, son of Japhet, be on the increase, I fear the movements of our restless race are not altogether progressive.
But there is good reason to think, that the Cimbri were of the Brito-Gallic race and tongue. Morimarusa (Pliny, iv. 27.) does not belong to Indogermanic, or any such high categories as will prove nearly what you please. It is a piece of exact and determinate Brito-Gallic.
Pompeius Festus and Plutarch agree in stating, that the meaning of the name was robbers;—not, of course, as applied to individual offenders, or to any offenders, but as the hereditary boast of predatory tribes. "Thou shalt want ere I want" is the motto of the Lords Cranstoun, and was the motto of all Cimbrians.
Cimmerii has certainly every appearance of being the same name as Cimbri. In like manner, Cymmry becomes Cumbria and (unaccountably) Cambria; Ambrosius becomes Emmrys, and Humber Hymmyr. What remains of the old word Cimbr, or Cimmr, as meaning Latro, is the verb cymmeryd (and its cognate words), to take, or, more etymologically, to apportion: Dividers of booty. The change of the sharp iota into that short vowel of which we possess not the long, but of which the long is the French eu, forms the difficulty; but the savages of Asia, and those of Caius Marius, may be conceived to have used vowels of shriller pronunciation than the Gauls and Britons.
The Brigantes of Yorkshire, &c., bore a synonymous appellation, still used in French and Armorican, and not wholly extinct in Welsh. Of a race named Cimbri, or Cumbri, in this island, nothing whatever is known from ancient geography or history. And probably no such name co-existed with that of the Brigantes. For, if the two synonymes were used together, neither would express a distinctive peculiarity. The fable of the Brut probably has a core of general truth, when it refers that name to the days of the Cambro-Scoto-Saxon tripartition, disguised as Cambro-Albano-Loegrian.
A. N.
Rents of Assize (Vol. v., p. 127.).
—Rents of Assize, Redditus assisæ de assisa vel redditus assisus. The certain and determined rents of ancient tenants paid in a set quantity of money or provisions; so called, because it was assised or made certain, and so distinguished from redditus mobilis, variable rent, that did rise and fall, like the corn rent now reserved to colleges. (Cowel's Interpreter.) Ob. q. mean respectively obolus and quadrans.
The great pipe is a roll in the Exchequer wherein all accounts and debts due to the king delivered and drawn out of the remembrancer's offices, are entered and charged. I presume the Bishop of Winchester's great pipe was a roll of all accounts and debts due to him in right of his bishopric.