212
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. m. MAR. is, 1911.
Apart from its conceits and its stilted
manner, the poem is notable for two reasons :
it has uncommon merits as the exercise
of a schoolboy, and it pleasantly anticipates
the unrivalled management of the heroic
couplet which was achieved in after years.
THOMAS BAYNE.
[SUSANNA CORNER and CYNTHIA WONTNER also refer to Dryden.]
GRATIOTJS OB GRACINES STREET =GRACE- CHUBCH STREET (11 S. iii. 149, 175). Grace- church Street has nothing to do with " grace" or " gracious." Stow says there used to be a herb-market there, though he does not give his authority. But whether built near a herb-market or merely on a grassy meadow, the old church of St. Benet was known as the Grass Church from very early times. In 1053 Brihtmser entered into a compact at " Gerschereche " with Archbishop Stigand and others by which he made an endowment to the convent of Christchurch at Canterbury. In the ' Calendars of Husting Wills ' and in other ancient documents the church and street are called " Greschurch " or " Gras- church." The form " Gracechurch Street " did not come into use till the sixteenth century. The earliest will in which I have found it is dated 1505. Even then it was by no means common. Stow invariably calls the church and street " Grass Church " and " Grass Street." In a will dated 1551 I find the form " Grace Street." Thence came the corruptions noted by MR. JESSON, " Gracious Street " and " Gratious Street," which were fairly common during the seventeenth century.
Two churches in Lombard Street, All Hallows and St. Edmund the Martyr, also bore the epithet of " Grass Church," because the Grass Market extended down that thoroughfare, when it was far broader than in Stow's time. W. F. PRIDEAUX.
Stow tells us (ed. Thorns, p. 80) that " the parish church of St. Benedict is called Grassechurch of the herb-market there kept. The customes of Grassechurch market from the time of Edward III. speak of corn and 'malt, but no mention is made of grasse."
The earliest (1275) spelling known to me is " Garscherche." It occurs several times in the ' Calendar of Wills enrolled in the Court of Husting,' published by the Corporation of the City of London. " Gerscherche " occurs in 1278. In another document of the same year mention is made of " bladus in foro de Gascherche." The meaning of bladus, " blaed " (leaf), cannot be limited to " grass,"
and we must not forget that though Stow
cited the notion that Grace(church) is
derived from " grasse," he immediately
threw cold water upon it. " Garscherche,"
" Gerscherche," " Grescherche " (1298),
clearly mean the church built or endowed by
a man named Gaerfrith, or Gserhelm, or
Gaerlaf, or the like.
ALFRED ANSCOMBE.
There is a Gracious Street at Whittlesey in the Isle of Ely, but I do not know how it got its name. G. C. MOORE SMITH.
BAB "SiNiSTEB 35 (11 S. ii. 485). Q. V.'s note would seem to show that a bar was used as a mark of bastardy in Scotland in the sixteenth century; I presume that "bar'- 1 had the same meaning in Scottish heraldry as in English. But a "bar sinister " obviously remains an impossibility. Curiously enough, however, " bar sinister " occurs (doubtless by a slip of the pen) in the standard English work on book-plates, ' A Guide to the Study of Book-Plates,' by John Byrne Leicester Warren (Lord de Tabley), on p. 132 of the second edition (1900), where an old German plate is de- scribed thus :
" Dr. John Gasteb. Hans Gastgeb Doctor. Arms on a 'bar sinister a lion ramp. Crest A wing. 7X 4J in."
No doubt the difference between " Gasteb " and " Gastgeb " is also due to a clerical error. Perhaps a bend sinister was intended.
G. H. WHITE.
St."Cross, Harleston, Norfolk.
As a bar is horizontal, it cannot be either dexter or sinister. Evidently a bend is meant. L. L. K.
CBEVEQTJEBOF BEBEFOBD (11 S. iii. 149). Probably what OLD SARUM requires is Great Barford, in Bedfordshire. In the ' Feudal Aids,' vol. i. (published uniform with the Calendars of Patent Rolls, &c.), both the Crevequers and Beauchamps are mentioned in connexion with Bereford, co. Bedford, which the index identifies with Great Barford. There are other Berefords, however. See Domesday and the ' Feudal Aids.' D. M.
LAMB, BURTON, AND FRANCIS SPIERA (US. iii. 61, 152). There is no room for L. L. K.'s conjecture. The work to which Nathaniel Bacon was indebted is ' Sigismundi Geloi Transylvani Historia de Francisco Spiera,' on pp. 96-124 of ' Francisci Spierse, Qui quod Svsceptam semel Euangelics3
