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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. MARCH 20, 190*.
{pronounced something like Karus), standing for
Kiare-as-Feed, "Four-and-Twenty," which was the
number of its members. The transformation would
have been easier in former times, when "Keys"
was always pronounced Kays. We may add that
those who are keen about the origin of surnames
will find much to interest them in these two
volumes.
Ancient Calendars and Constellations. By the Hon.
Emmeline M. Plunket. (Murray.) BY "ancient" is here meant Babylonian, Egyptian, and Indian. It has long been recognized that the zodiacal constellations (on the places of the sun and moon in which all calendar-making is and must be founded) originated with the star-observers in the Euphratean valley. But there are difficulties connected with the subject in consequence of the changes produced by the precession of the equi- noxes, which Miss Plunket has fully grasped, and on which she has brought forward some helpful suggestions. The work is chiefly a collection of papers contributed by her to the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, and the volume gives a view of all that is now known respecting the very interesting subject of which it treats. The days are long gone by since Sir G. Cornewall Lewis endeavoured to throw doubt upon the results of decipherment (then only in its infancy) of the cuneiform inscriptions, whole libraries of which are now in our hands.
The First Volume of the Conway Parish Registers, in the Rural Deanery of Arllechwedd, Diocese of Bangor, Caernarvonshire, 1541 to 1793. (Clark.) Miss HADLEY has edited the Conway parish regis- ters with great care. The labour of transcription must have been very wearisome, as the documents are some of them faded. They also abound in contractions, and three languages Latin, Welsh, and English have been employed. The present volume, though covering upwards of two centuries .and a half, does not contain the weddings after 1753, when the new marriage law, as it was called, came into force. We are, however, promised these marriages in due time. May we suggest that when this register is copied for the printer the names of the witnesses should on no account be omitted? They are often very important, as furnishing sug- gestions of family relationships, which not infre- quently direct to evidences of pedigree which would otherwise have failed to come to light.
The editor in her introduction gives useful notes on the history of Conway. From 1172 to 1284 it was the site of a Cistercian abbey, around which a flourishing town soon grew up. When, however, Edward I. established his rule over Wales he drove away the native population, and, with what they must have regarded as high-handed injustice, peopled the town with Englishmen. From what part of his ancestral dominions he gathered his new settlers Miss Hadley does not tell us. There is probably no evidence on the matter. The ^inonks were also removed, but in their case it cannot be regarded as an act of confiscation, as they were settled at Maenan, some ten miles away. When this removal took place the monastic church was made parochial. To what extent it suffered by the change is not clear. We imagine it passed lightly through storms of the Tudor period and the wars of the seventeenth century, and that the changes the modern archaeologist deplores are mainly due to
the neglect of Georgian officialism and the crass
ignorance of the restorers of later days.
In the Conway registers, as is the case with nearly all such documents when they extend back to an early period, there are blanks. Here we find that several years at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century have not been filled in. This neglect was probably due to the plague, which nearly depopulated Conway during the ten years between 1597 and 1607. It is interesting to find that in Wales, as we believe to be the case in Scotland, the burial entries regard- ing married women record their maiden names as well as the surnames of their husbands. Had this been the custom in England it would have been a great help to genealogists. The index of names seems accurate and complete ; but we are sorry that it gives surnames only. In cases of common names, such as Hughes, Jones, Lloyd, and Williams, this is the cause of great inconvenience. There is, moreover, an index of trades and professions men- tioned in the registers which will be found of service.
Miss Hadley gives a valuable addition not pro- mised on the title-page, that is, all the monumental inscriptions which occur inside the church. We give one of them here, as it may interest our American readers : " Annae uxori Thomas Apthorp Armig. que annum tricessimum agens decessit Septr. 28 MDCCLXXXIV. maritus americanus ob fidem regi debitam proscriptus morens P." The inscrip- tions in the churchyard, which are not given, are, we understand, numerous. We trust they are reserved for a future volume.
ia
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CLKRICUS. Tennyson refers to Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, who is said to have secured his head after his execution and kept it till her death.
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