Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/402

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394


NOTES AND QUERIED. [9* s. ii. tfov. 12,


with the east wall of the centre alley, and the buttresses at their angles are turned outwards. The western portion of the presbytery (including the choir proper), built by Thoresby's successors, has its walls practically parallel, but the main axis or centre line of Thoresby's work was kept, causing the divergence before noted at the central tower. This in turn has affected the later rood-screen, its doorway having had to be made central with the choir and not with the tower. There are, conse- quently, eight divisions containing canopied arches and statues on the south side and only seven on the north."

In conclusion, I may say that although the symbolic significance of deflecting chancels is not referred to by Durandus, it is dwelt on by Messrs. Neale and Webb in their intro- ductory essay to the translation of the first book of the 'Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,' where they do not think it is too much to assert that the divergence may be noticed in a fourth of the churches of England. To these gentlemen and to Sir S. R. Glynne, Bart., Hawarden Castle, Chester, corrections for the ' Handbook of English Ecclesiology ' were to be forwarded (see preface). ST. SWITHIN.

It may be worth while recording that M. J. K. Huysmans in his novel 'The Cathedral' (Eng. trans., 1898) says :

' ' This twist in the church is to be seen almost every- where in St. Ouen and in the Cathedral at Rouen, in St. Jean at Poitiers, at Tours and at Reims."

A few lines further on (p. 109) he instances the abbey church of Preuilly-sur-Claise, in Touraine, as symbolizing, unlike those above mentioned, not the dead Christ, but the living. The church of Preuilly

" represents in its serpentine line, in the perspec- tive of its aisles and the obliquity of its vaulting, the allegorical presentment of our Lord on the Cross,"

thus perpetuating "the never-to-be-forgotten instant that elapsed between the 'Sitio' and the ' Consummatum est.' " A. K. BAYLEY.

ROMAN CATHOLIC (9 th S. ii. 227). That a man might be fittingly called Catholic in the Middle Ages is evident from a passage at the end of ' Le Prince Noir,' a poem that is sup- posed to have been written by Chandos the Herald, who attended the Black Prince in person. The poet is giving an estimate of the Prince's character :

Mais pur doner en remembrance De son fait et reconiasance Et de sa trea-haute proesse Et de sa tres-noble largesse, Et auxi de sa prudhommie, Coment il fut toute sa vie Prodhom loialx et catholiques Et en touz biens faire publiques.

" Catholic " is employed in such varied, fan-


tastic, and utterly unexpected senses by most of the members of the English-speaking races in the nineteenth century, that it would not be wonderful if some ingenious corre- spondent were to suggest that " catholiques " in the above passage signifies only " of wide and intelligent sympathies." It may, how- ever, be observed that there is no other .word in the piece descriptive of the Prince's piety, which would hardly have been left unmen- tioned by the poet-historian, who no doubt meant to put it upon record that the brilliant hero of Poitiers and Navarette was a faithful son of the Holy Roman Church.

T. P. ARMSTRONG. Putney.

Probably the following quotation from Milton's treatise 'Of True Religion,' &c. (1673), does not contain the earliest known instance of this term, but it may be worth recording for the sake of his pun :

" And whereas the papist boasts himself to be a Roman Catholic, it is a mere contradiction, one of the Pope's bulls, as if he should say, universal parti- cular, a catholic schismatic." ' Prose Works,' ed. Fletcher, 1833, p. 562 (third paragraph).

W. G. BOSWELL-STONE. 47, Wickman Road, Beckenham.

Consult the Index of the Parker Society's publications, s.v. ' Catholic.'

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. Hastings.

[We have received valuable historical answers from FATHKR ANGUS and MR. JOHN T. CURRY, with other replies which we hesitate to publish, so many prejudices or convictions being likely to be stirred.]

SIR RICHARD HOTHAM, KNT. (9 th S. i. 448 ; ii. 17, 176, 313). Lord Hotham writes to me and says of Sir Richard Hotham :

" He was a Yorkshireman, and apprenticed to a London hatter, and married his daughter, prospered, and became an alderman and mayor, and was knighted. He called on Sir Beaumont Hotham and said that, although he had no claim, he should like to carry the Hotham arms if Sir Beaumont made no objection, and Sir Richard put Sir Beaumont or his son's name in his will for a handsome legacy. The legacy came to nothing, as Sir Richard took to building at Bognor, and lost all his money. He called it ' Hotham Town,' but afterwards changed the name to ' Bognor Rocks.' The buildings exist still, and Sir Richard's name is there pronounced as it is in Yorkshire."

W. B.

SHORT A v. ITALIAN A (9 th S. i. 127, 214, 258, 430 ; ii. 77, 218). With regard to the point raised by MR. PENNY (ante, p. 77), that this differing pronunciation is due to " local causes and consequent uses," there can be no doubt that it is of very great importance. But this explanation cannot be accepted