The Beghards, on the other hand, were not, properly speaking, monks at all, inasmuch as they were not under any monastic vow. They professed poverty, and lived on alms generally; but in other respects their mode of life was various, and their orthodoxy and morality very doubtful. They are generally denounced by the ecclesiastical authorities; and, except in some few places and under certain regulations, were never recognised by the Church. The best account of them will be found in Mosheim's posthumous and unfinished treatise, De Beghardis et Beguinis. The name is evidently, as Mosheim shows, a compound of beg (from the old Saxon beggen, mendicare) and hard, or hart, a servant, famulus, servus: the same word which we still use in the composition of such words as shepherd, cow-herd, swine-herd. So that Beghard is not otherwise different from our word beggar, than in so far as it was formerly applied to a religious sect.
MR. BENMOHEL'S explanation of Rehetour is very ingenious, and may very possibly be true. His interpretation of Muck is not so satisfactory.]
PLAGUE STONES.
(Vol. v., p. 226.)
At the bottom of a street leading from Bury St. Edmunds to the Newmarket road, stands an octagonal stone of Petworth marble with a hole in it, which is said to have been filled with water or vinegar in the time of the small-pox in 1677, for people to dip their money in on leaving the market. What truth may attach to the traditionary use of the stone I know not; but the stone is the base of a cross called St. Peter's Cross, and the hole is the socket for the shaft.
BURIENSIS.
Are the stones mentioned by your correspondent J. J. S. as plague stones anything more than the "holy stones" common at the meeting of old cross roads in Lancashire, and perhaps other counties? The square hole in them is surely nothing more than the socket in which the way-side cross was formerly placed. Perhaps, however, he is speaking of a different and less common kind of stone, in which case, if a list is made, it must be by some competent person, able to distinguish the one from the other.
P. P.
In compliance with the suggestion of J. J. S., I may note that what I suppose (since reading his communication in "N. & Q.") to be a "plague stone" is to be seen close to Gresford in Denbighshire. I met with it last summer, and could not then imagine what it could be. It is a large hexagonal (I think) stone, with a round cavity on the top, which certainly was full of water when I passed it. This cavity is pretty deep, and the stone must be nearly three feet high, by from two to three across. I regret I made no measurements of it. It is situated about a quarter of a mile from the town on the road to Wrexham, under a wide-spreading tree, on an open space where three roads meet. Should this be seen by any Gresfordite, perhaps he would send you a more accurate description of this stone, with any legend that may be attached to it.
G. J. R. G.