AMANUENSIS.
Frebord.
—I want information on this matter, and consider "N. & Q." peculiarly the place wherein to seek it, because it is a matter mainly dependent on local custom. All the notice of Frebord that I have been able to discover in books is derived from Dugdale. For instance, in Jacob's Law Dictionary, ed. 1807, I read—
"Frebord, Franchordus, ground claimed in some places more or less, beyond, or without the fence. It is said to contain two foot and a half."
Mon. Ang., tom. ii. p. 141.
I heard, the other day, of a Warwickshire gentleman who claimed ten or twelve feet; but the immediate reason for my Query is a claim at present under the notice of a friend of mine is for sixty-six feet freebord! Is not such a claim preposterous?
P. M. M.
The Stature of Queen Elizabeth.
—In a book entitled Physico-Theology, being the substance of sixteen sermons preached in St. Mary-le-Bone Church, London, at the Honourable Mr. Boyle's lectures in 1711 and 1712, with notes, &c., by the Rev. W. Derham (a second edition, with additions, published in 1714), the authors, in treating of the stature and size of man's body, says there is great reason to think the size of man was always the same from the Creation; and in a note at page 330., after quoting Dr. Hakewill's Apolog. and other authorities, concludes with these words:—
"Nay, besides all this probable, we have some more certain evidence. Augustus was five foot nine inches high, which was the just measure of our famous Queen Elizabeth, who exceeded his height two inches, if proper allowance be made for the difference between the Roman and our foot."