394
NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 s.m. AUG.. 1917.
English, of which the English one is :
" Barnabees Journal, under the names of
Mirtilus & Faust n his Shadowed : for the
Travellers Solace lately published, to most
apt numbers reduced, and to the old
Tune of Barnabe commonly chanted. By
Corymbaeus."
The researches of Joseph Haslewood, who published what was really the ninth (though its predecessor calls itself the seventh) edition in 1820, established that the author was Richard Brathwait (1588-1673) of Oriel College, native of Burneshead, near Kendal, in Westmorland, a prolific writer, to whose authorship Haslewood credits forty-seven works. In the first edition Banbury is spelt " Banbery." This is corrected in the second, and reappears in 1818. " Profane " is " prophane " in the early editions ; and all, as I believe, have " Hanging," not " A-hanging." The Latin version in the first edition is :
Vent Banbery, prophanum !
Ubi vidi Puritanum,
Felem facientem furem,
Quia Sabbatho stravit Murem.
JOHN R. MAGRATH. Queen's College, Oxford. [Several correspondents thanked for replies.]
ST. BARBARA, V.M. (12 S. iii. 41, 136, 158, 175, 211, 279, 341). The Memling triptych with St. ^Barbara, mentioned on p. 342 as being possibly in the Louvre, was returned to Bruges in 1815, and, if not stolen, must still be there. Anselmi's ' Holy Family with St. Barbara ' is not in the Louvre, but at Parma. PREBENDARY DEEDES would find more than thirty early paintings representing St. Barbara in my ' Repertoire des Peintures,' vols. i.-iii. ; suffice to look up the index of vol. iii., sub voc. Barbe (Ste.). There exist many more paintings of that saint, who was a very popular figure in Flemish art.
In such books as Roscher's ' Lexikon der Mythologie ' we possess almost complete lists of works of ancient art referring to the gods and heroes of paganism, but there is no such book relating to Christian saints ; all we have is superficial and inaccurate. It would be well worth while compiling a detailed Dictionary of Christian Religion and Legend, from the iconographical point of view only. Years ago I hoped that it would be undertaken by the Benedictine scholars in England ; the task is so heavy that only a learned society could hope to complete it. Two large libraries in Paris possess enormous manuscript material ready for use, repro- ductions of works of art relating .to the saints having been classified there in
alphabetical order ; the richest series is in
the Bibliotheque des Arts decoratif s (Pavilion
Marsan, Louvre). S. REINACH.
Boulogne-sur-Seine.
According to the Coptic Calendar, St. Bar- bara was the daughter of a great man in the land of the East, and suffered martyrdom under Maximinus (Malan, ' Notes on the Calendar,' p. 61), i.e., about 237, or, as another authority states, " St. Barbara was a scholar of Origen, suffered martyrdom at Heliopolis in Egypt in reign of Galerius." The Abyssinian Church keeps her feast on the same day as the Copts and Latins, viz. Dec. 4.
In the unique and remarkable Roman fortress city of Babylon, or Old Cairo, is a large and lofty monastic building of the eighth or ninth century, dedicated to our saint, known as Kali Burbarah, of which a description is given in Mr. A. J. Butler's ' Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt,' i. 235- 247. It is not impossible that the remains of the martyr were brought here from Heliopolis, eight miles distant. Butler speaks of a picture in its church of St. Barbara " and her daughter Juliana," but she is marked in the Calendar as a Virgin martyr." The picture represents her with a palm in the left hand, and " pointing to a model of a church which she hold's in her right.... a six-domed Byzantine-looking building with a turret and cross-capped spire probably a purely conventional symbol " ;
and on the altar of her chapel there is " a curious little portable tower-shaped shrine (2 ft. 3 in. high and 9 in. square)," which is the area or altar casket common to Coptic altars to this day. Reservation of the Holy Sacrament has long been discontinued in the Coptic Church, but this area is still retained and used during the celebration of the Liturgy. This turris was the form of perhaps the earliest tabernacles, such as we now use in Catholic churches ; and between the two came the peristeria or doves of the suspended Host. An illustration of an early com- bination of both ideas, the tower and dove, may be seen in M. A. de Caumont's ' Abec6- daire d'Archeologie,' i. 547, where the dove is placed in the centre of a square fortress, and at p. 342 is an early turret-shaped ciborium such as might be used in Catholic churches to-day.
When devotion began to regard St. Barbara as a patroness for a " happy and provided death " I cannot say, or if the Eastern Church so regard her ; but it is in this aspect that she became popular in the West, and to this her emblem refers. Naturallv she wot
- >ukl
