LABYRINTHUS A DIVO BERNARDO
COMPOSITUS QUO BENE VIVIT HOMO
| DICERE | SCIS | DICIT | SCIT | AUDIT | NON VULT |
| FACERE | POTES | FACIT | POTEST | INCURRIT | NON CREDIT |
| CREDERE | AUDIS | CREDIT | AUDIT | CREDIT | NON EST |
| DARE | HABES | DAT | HABET | MISERE QUAERIT | NON HABET |
| JUDICARE | VIDES | JUDICAT | VIDET | CONTEMNIT | NON DEBET |
| NOLI | OMNIA QUAE | QUIA QUI | OMNIA QUAE | SAEPE | QUOD |
As a sample of a verbal labyrinth this seems to be very simple and straightforward in comparison with the average Act of Parliament.
Let us turn now, for a brief space, to a question which, although bearing upon matters dealt with earlier in the book, has been too little investigated to warrant more than a nodding reference in our more serious chapters—the question of place-names.
The occurrence of a suggestive place-name is, as previously hinted, very slender evidence by itself on which to form an opinion of the former existence of a maze in the locality. There is always the possibility that the name may be a corruption of some ancient word of very different significance, perhaps the name of some person, or that it may have been bestowed fancifully or in respect of some resemblance to another place.
In the absence of fuller information we will limit ourselves to the bare mention of such names as convey a suggestion of possible maze sites, merely remarking any cases in which evidence in one direction or the other has come to notice.
The district known as Maze Pond, familiar to Londoners in the neighbourhood of the Borough, and to which we made reference in Chapter XV, takes its name from the ancient manor of the Maze, which was in the holding of Sir John Burcestre in the fifteenth century. An old token bears the inscription, "Michael Blower, at ye Maze, Southwarke." What kind of maze, if any, formerly existed in the locality we do not know.
Maze Hill has sometimes been assumed to derive its name from a maze which is supposed to have existed in the park of the former royal palace of Greenwich (see p. 136), but the name was formerly spelt in a different manner and may have quite another origin. In Hasted's "History of Kent," 1778, it is referred to as Mease Hill, and it has been suggested that this may have come from the Celtic word Maes, meaning "field." There is a Maze Green in Hertfordshire, near Bishops Stortford. Possibly there was formerly a turf maze in the vicinity like that on Saffron Walden common, not very far away, but we have no evidence to that effect.
A few miles west of Lisburn, in Ireland, are two places named respectively "The Maze" and "Mazetown," the former a small village in Antrim, the latter a racing centre just over the county border in Down.
"Troy-town," as we have seen, also occurs as a place-name. In Dorset there is one near Dorchester and another near Bere Regis. These are alleged to be the sites of former turf mazes, of which, however, there are no authentic records. In Kent there is one near Hastingleigh, and the name also occurs at Rochester.[7] The latter is said to commemorate a former owner or builder of property in that part of the town, whose name happened to be Troy. A part of Peckham also used to be known as Troy-town.