372
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vi. NOV. 9, 1912.
' Gulfila Gotus." But as ^Emilius Dracon-
tius in c. 595 wrote | Sarmata Persa Gotthus,
in a hexameter, he disregarded the tendency,
and preferred to think that John the Old
Saxon and Grimbald the Frank, two of the
scholars who collaborated with King Alfred,
would have marked the o in Gotan short,
and he would never discuss the point. Of
course he knew that King Alfred, the inter-
polator of Orosius, did not write" Gottan "
(as in Thorpe's Analecta,' p. 82, 1. 3) ; but
everybody said that " Gotan " had short
o, and what everybody says must be
right, so it was not necessary to mention
the divergence from Gothns in King Alfred's
orthography. Hence our old friend had
long since dropped Abbot John the Old
Saxon, King Alfred the Collaborator, and
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha also, out of sight into
one mental receptacle, and " Gotthus "
and Thorpe's " Gottan," and King Alfred
the Interpolator, into another.
The reply of the little boys to the question about the relative position of Old Anglia and the Ethel Gotena was very disagreeable, however ; and the schoolmaster turned to an important work on ' Widsith ' which had just then appeared, and which had been com- piled very diligently by a capable and pains- taking scholar. It reassured him. He soon learnt that the new author did not believe in Widsith's truthfulness any more than the old ones. On referring to the commentary on the line which the little boys said put the Ethel Gotena to the westward of Old Anglia, he perceived that what Widsith had said was not credited, and he found something else which rendered him quite easy in mind once more ; and so he resumed his lifelong search on the map of Europe. What he found in the new author's note dealing with the Ethel Gotena and its position with respect to Old Anglia (p. 189, last line but one) was this :
" But the whole thing is puzzling."
ALFRED ANSCOMBE.
' HUSENBETH'S BREVIARY ' (11 S. vi. 191). In reply to MR. HIBGAME'S query I may say that I am under the impression that T. Meighan printed a Breviary in London about the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury, although I have no details at hand. In my collection, however, is the
"Primer or Office of the B. Virgin Mary to
which are added the remaining Hymns of the Roman Breviary. [London] Printed for T. Meighan in the year 1732." 12m o, pp. 568
The prayers include some for rain and fair weather, and one against Pagans and Turks.
Early in the seventeenth century several
service books of the kind appeared, which,
though bearing a foreign imprint, were
apparently produced quietly from London
presses, perhaps through the activity of
Robert Parsons and his friends.
WILLIAM JAGGARD.
Rose Bank, Stratford-on-Avon.
LONDON SANCTUARIES : RAM ALLEY (11 S. vi. 306). In describing Ram Alley as " the old name for Mitre Court, Fleet Street, which was then [1697] known by both designations," R. B. P. falls into error. Mitre Court made its own claim for sanctuary, and was quite distinct from Ram Alley. The latter was the neighbouring court running down from Fleet Street to the passage leading from Serjeants' Inn into the Temple, the name having been changed last century into Hare Place. Let into the wall of one of the houses in Serjeants' Inn backing into Hare Place is a boundary-stone on which "Ram Alley," clearly cut, may still be read. Ram Alley, the deepest deep in the whole abyss of Alsatia, took its name from a messuage bearing the sign of " The Starre & the Ramme," which belonged to the Knights Hospitallers, and was seized by Henry VIII. at the suppression. The King granted the property in fee to Robert Harrys, who afterwards leased the frontage towards Fleet Street to another, leaving an entry from the highway giving access to his own brewery at the rear. This entry was the origin of Ram Alley, which is one of the comparatively few courts about Fleet Street that can be traced back to Henry VIII.
WALTER BELL.
MOROCCO (11 S. vi. 266). The following entry occurs in the parish register of All Saints', Burmarsh, near Hythe, Kent :
March 2, 1700/1. " Church Brief for Captives at Machanes under the Emperor of Fez and Moroccoe."
In Arch. Cant., vol. ix. p. xliv, mention is made of " Thomas Morockoe, a Blacka- more," as one of the household of the third Earl of Dorset, 1624 (?).
R. J. FYNMORE.
OLIVERETTO (11 S. vi. 288) of Fermo was a famous condottiere, who by most foul means obtained the lordship of his native town of Fermo, but, being involved in the rising of the condottieri against Caesar Borgia, was put to death by the latter at Sinigaglia on 31 Dec., 1502. Machiavelli in his report, dated from Sinigaglia next day, describes the murder, while in his ' Prince '
