)*s.iii.MAY27,m] NOTES AND QUERIES.
413
] ie ancient marriage ritual recognized the
actice of offering money. Thus in the . lisbury Missal the man is enjoined to say :
tVyth this rynge y the wedde, and thys gold i d selvir the geve, and with all my worldly itel I thee endowe." The service books for
>rk and Hereford had the same expression, i d it continued until the time of Edward VI.,
lose Prayer Book enjoined that the ring was
be accompanied with "other tokens of
- ousage, as gold or silver," and that the
nm should say: "This gold and silver I ive thee," at the repetition of which it was ustomary to place a purse of money in the oman's hands as part of her dowry. This as left out of the revised Prayer Book, >ecause all who came to be married could ot afford a dowry (vide 'The Wedding Day All Ages,' by Edw. J. Wood). Horace Wal- )ole in his ' Letters ' says : " The endowing ur.se, I believe, has been left off ever since road pieces were called in and melted down." These " broad pieces " were a denomination of some old English gold pieces broader than a guinea, especially Caroluses and Jacobuses worth about 24s. The custom still survives in primitive districts of Cumberland and North Wales, where rustic grooms are even still required to go through the form of buy- ing their wives in open church.
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.
The giving of the endowing purse was an indent custom common to the Greeks and Romans, and also prevailed amongst the Jews ind many Eastern nations. It was changed
- .n the Middle Ages and in the north of
Europe for the Morgengabe, or morning oresent. A similar custom prevailed in England under the name of "dow purse." Jharabers's 'Book of Days,' vol. i. p. 719, ays, "A trace of this custom is still kept up n Cumberland." The hammered gold coins
1 use before the guinea was issued (1662) rere named broad pieces, value about 24s. ; ley were withdrawn from circulation in
JOHN KADCLIFFE.
See Blunt's ' Annotated Prayer Book ' :
"The wedding ring is the only relic of the
ncient tokens of spousage gold, silver, and a ring
eing formerly given In the Prayer Book of
349 the gold and silver were still directed to be ven (and in Bishop Cosin's revised Prayer Book e proposed a restoration of the custom, inserting and other tokens of spousage, as gold, silver, or racelets,' after the word ' ring'), but in 1552 'the ccusto-.ned duty to the Priest and Clerk ' was aserably substituted, and retained in the revision t 1661. It is possible that the 'gold and silver' ad customarily been appropriated as the marriage
- but Hooker says that the use of them had ' in
a manner already worn out' even as early aa the
time of Queen Elizabeth."
M. ELLEN POOLE. Alsager, Cheshire.
MUTTERD (9 th S. iii. 207). I have en- deavoured to find out the locality of the above-mentioned place, but without success, and can only offer MR. RUTTON the following suggestion. Holinshed's 'Chronicles,' 1586, gives an account of the capture of Boulogne in 1544, also of the siege of Muttrell. Cooper's 4 Chronicles,' 1560, fol. 324, says :
"After the Whitson holy daies the Duke of Northffolke, and the lorde priuiseale with a great army toke theyr viage into France, and besieged Muttrell/' &c.
In 'The Annales of England,' by Francis Godwin, 1630, p. 190, the name is given Montrueil, whicn is twenty miles S.S.E. of Boulogne. Is it not probable that Mutterd is a corruption of Muttrell 1
JOHN KADCLIFFE.
It was scarcely to have been expected that in the name thus rendered (perhaps mis- printed) in Berry's pedigree of Cheney, Kent, any one would recognize Montreal!, an ancient French town, twenty miles S.S.E. of Boulogne. Such, however, is the result of my search. The place was besieged by the army of Henry VIII. at the same time 1544 as was Boulogne, after the capture of which the siege of Montreuil was raised. Hall and Holinshed call it Mut- trell and Mutterell, which came nearer to truth, though barbarous enough. In another contemporary mention (quoted by Rymer. ' Fcedera,' xv. 52) it is Monstreull. Lingara has it correctly, Montreuil.
As my query was prompted by a reference to one of the Cheney or Cheyne family, the Editor, true to the motto of 'N. & Q.,' "When found, make a note of," may allow special record of an ascertained fact (see 'Cheney,' inte, p. 382). W. L. BUTTON.
"MEAD AND OBARNI" (9 th S. iii. 306). Evidently " Obarni " indicates some kind of mead. Of such drinks the Russians appear, from the narratives of our old English tra- vellers, to have had formerly a great variety. In the account of the voyage of Sir Jerome Bowes in 1583 (see Harris's ' Travels,' i. 535), among the items of diet supplied by the Em- peror to our ambassador are " Cherry Mead," 'Mallynovo Mead," "Sodden Mead," "Sweet Mead," "White Mead," and "Ordinary Mead," resides "burnt Wine," "sweet Beer," and ' Beer." The writer of the narrative of the Ambassadors from the Duke of Holstein's Travels into Muscovy and Persia" (ib., ii. 1-112) gives, at p. 23, some interesting par-
