Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/161

12 s.x. FEB. is, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 127 Hist. Review, u.s.) ; also Round (to judge de Torigny, cites Gams without expressing from the date limits assigned to No. 502 an opinion of his own. G. H. WHITE. and others in his ' Calendar of Documents 23, Weighton Road, Anerley. Preserved in France '). Apparently Philip had revenged himself on the unappreciative Chapter of Salisbury | INFERENCE AS TO DATE OF BIRTH. For by^carrying off some of their relics ; for a pedigrees earlier than the nineteenth cen- letter from the Archbishop of Rouen to the tury researchers often have to infer the date English prelates (1142-1153) announces the of birth from statements of age at certain settlement of a dispute between the Bishops ! epochs, such as entering school or univer- of Bayeux and Salisbury as to what had ' sity, or at death. The data are usually been carried off from the treasury of Salis- ; a statement of age in years (only), and a bury Cathedral : Philip has restored an more precise date, with month and day, arm * covered with plates of gold and of the epoch. But the calculation is tricky adorned with precious stones, and has also and difficult, and often that ambiguous given 10 marcs of silver ('Gal. Docts. ; expression comes in, ** cet. 70" or so. That France,' No. 1438). It would be interesting should mean anno cetatis suce septuagesimo, to know to whom the arm was supposed i &c., but is often taken to mean <: aged " to belong ! so-and-so : the man referred to is of course As Bishop of Bayeux, Philip was also sixty-nine years old and in his seventieth Dean of the house of Holy Trinity of Beau- year. And two minor pitfalls gape in front mont until it was granted to Bee (Round, ! of us : the ambiguity (until 1752 inclusive) "Commune of London,' p. 116); and he i of the period between Jan. 1 and March attested the charter by which Count Waleran | 24, both inclusive (for Feb. 3, 1643/4, of Meulan made the grant in question. A called at the time sometimes 1643 and some- clause, which is evidently a later addition, ; times 1644, is for us always 1644) ; and gives the date as "1142 [sic] 6 Idus leap year (for Feb. 29 must always be Decembris" (' Cal. Docts. France,' No. 370.) j counted as Feb. 28 in years which are not We are told that the bishop fuit vir I leap year, for purposes of calculation). prudens et astutus in augmentandis et re- For these and other reasons many mistakes vocandis rebus illius ecclesiae (Robert de i are made by unskilled persons in inferences Torigny, p. 217). For his activities in re- I from the data mentioned above, and it covering the property of the see, cf. Haskins, seems worth while to state precisely what Eng. Hist. Review, xxvii. 437, 439 ; and in can properly be inferred in the three follow - 1154 we find that Geoffrey de Clinton has ing cases. The results are of considerable mortgaged his land at Douvres to the. bishop ' use when parish registers have to be searched, (' Cal. Docts. France,' No. 1441). MS well as for precision in dates. A charter of Henry II. (1156-59) shows When age at a certain date is given, what Philip presiding, jointly with Robert de j can be inferred about the date of birth ? Neufbourg the Chief Justiciar of Nor- L Given year onl and Subtract f^w y ^^Q^ u-^ mg S co ! u> * a * u Rouen | the age from the date. Then the birth was (ibid., No. 132), which suggests that he was | 6 at ear i iest on Jan . 2 in the year before acting as Joint Justiciar at the time ; but | the resu ltant year Vernon Harcourt considers that the evi- at Utest on Dec> 31 in tne resultant ear . dence is not conclusive (' His Grace the Steward,' pp. 47-48). The bishop intended to become a monk before ' Then the birth was at Bee, to which he had presented 140 books, but died before he could fulfil his 2. Given year and month. Subtract as at earliest on the second day of that month, in the year before the intention, in February, 1163 (Robert de Torigny, p. 217). This date is accepted I ^ .^ on the last day of that month, by Eyton (op. cit., p. 84) and Delisle (u.s.}, m the res ltant year. but Le Prevost and Gams give the year 3 - Glven 2/w month and day. Subtract as 1164 ; and Howlett, in a note on Robert as before. Then the birth was at earliest on the next day in that in the before the t may remember Beetle's hazardous translation lesultailt year ; (in ' A Diversity of Creatures ') of " Consemiit atf latest on the resultant year, month socerortim in arm is." and day.