488
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. 11. DEC. 17, **.
give (a) an Anglo-Saxon " book " or charter ;
(6) the Domesday entry ; (c) entry in the
Kotull Hundredorumj (a) an extent before
1349 j (e) a Compotus Roll of the same period ;
(/) a manor roll of 1350, showing the ravages
of the Black Death \ (g) an extent after 1381 ;
and (h) a map showing the distribution of the
slips on the three-fields system. It is easy
enough to find a series including three or four
of these items, and the whole bibliography of
such documents and maps has been compiled
by Miss Davenport, under the direction of
Prof. Ashley ; but as far as I can ascertain
there is no complete series such as I have
indicated above printed with regard to any
one manor, and I should be glad of a refer-
ence to any manuscript sources known to
contain such a series. It would simply be
invaluable for the light it would throw on the
economy of the manor system in mediaeval
England. JOSEPH JACOBS.
MABON'S DAY. By the reports in the newspapers on the recent coal strike in Wales, I find one day in each month (observed as a holiday) was called Mabon's Day. Query which day in the month ; and why so called 1 EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.
71, Brecknock Road.
[Mabon is the bardic name of Mr. W. Abraham, M.P., the miners' agent for the Rhondda. When, as a consequence of negotiations carried on by him, it was agreed that the first Monday in each month should be a play-day, this was called "Mabon's Day"; and the saying arose, "Mabon is a greater saint than David, for David has only one day a year, and Mabon has twelve."]
ANCESTRY OF SIR THOMAS MORE. Although the great-grandson and biographer of the Chancellor states,
"he bare arms from his birth, having his coat quartered ; which doth argue that he came to his inheritance by descent ; and therefore, by reason of King Henry's seizure of all our evidences, we cannot tell who were Sir John's ancestors, yet must they needs be gentlemen,"
modern accessibility of deeds and records may possibly make up the deficiency, and bring to light much information which Cresacre More was unable to obtain in the troubled days in which he wrote, and when no assistance would be rendered by either public or private individuals to a family so peculiarly Catholic as the Mores were known to be. All we at present know is that the old judge, Sir John, was son of a John More who was a member of Lincoln's Inn A.D. 1470, and the father of this John married Johanna, daughter of John Leycester. The arms quartered by Sir John and Sir Thomas are not those of Leycester; it therefore may
give us one step if we can identify them with
some other family ; they are Arg., on a chev,
sa., between three unicorns' heads erased sa.,
as many bezants. Can any reader of
' N. & 9- explain to what family they belong 1
It has just come to my knowledge that
"to the north'West of Potterspury and westward
of Yardley, Gobione has a small hamlet named
More-end or More's End, so called from the family
of More formerly seated within this lordship. It
hath been principally famous of its castle and the
manor it contained. Besides the castle there is a
large old house at More End, supposed to have
been the mansion of the Gobions."
Cresacre More, besides stating that Henry VIII. seized all their evidences, adds that the widow of Sir John
" outlived her son-in-law, Sir Thomas, dwelling upon her jointure in Hertfordshire, at a capital messuage called then More Place, now Gobions, in the parish of North Minims ; but being a little before her death thrust out of all by King Henry's fury, she died at Northall, a mile from thence, and there lieth buried."
In Fuller's 'Worthies' a Thomas Moore is numbered amongst the gentry of Bucks in 1433. Will some local antiquary contiguous to Gobions help to trace the connexion of the Mores therewith? Any information to elucidate the Chancellor's ancestry will be thankfully noted by
COL. MOORE, C.B., F.S.A. Frampton Hall, Boston.
" PHISGIE." In a sketch on ' Wife Sales ' in the South Wales Weekly News for 5 Nov., which is, by-the-by, very interesting, the author, the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, gives the word phisgie as meaning a " pick." I cannot find this word phisgie in any provincial vocabulary to which I have access. Can any of your readers say in what portion of the West Country it is so used, and its probable derivation? D. M. R.
FARNHAM. Was Farnham, in Dorset, anciently connected with Farnham, co. Cavan, Ireland ? " John Plecey held one carucate of land in Les Moures of Joan, who was wife of John Gary, Kt., as of her manor of Farnham, in Dorset ; after this it came to the Staffords, Earls of Devon." The De Burghs also were associated with the manor. This would seem to point to a connexion with Ireland. Were the crest, motto, and supporters of the Maxwells (Barons Farnham) derived from the same source as those of Fraser or Frisel of Nor- mandy, which are identical 1 T. W. C.
INACCURACIES IN MARRIAGE REGISTERS. Having just obtained a copy of the certificate of my maternal grandfather's marriage, I note
