9* S.VIL JUNE i,i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
421
LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1901.
CONTENTS. -No. 179.
NOTES : Ecclesiastical " Peculiars," 421 ' The Two Duchesses' Shakespeare's Books, 423 The "Gome- Outers," 424 " La-di-da" Cambridgeshire Ornithology Portall or Screen" Utilitarian "Trinity Hall Chapel, 425 Poet Laureate's Birthplace" Carking care," 426.
QUERIES : Consolidated Indexes, 426 Modern Books and Inconveniences Illustrations to 'The Mill' English Oratory "All roads lead to Rome " " Rymmyll " Americana Comtesse de Segur Kemp, 427 The Hat in Europe Isabel of Portugal I veagh, co. Down Boston Local Records Rev. G. Willis Rawlins-White Beard of the Pinna and Silk Unmarried Lord Mayors Cornish Daisy Names, 428 Cooke Hankford Ashwood Family, 429.
REPLIES : Heraldic : American Heraldry, 429 Apparition Browne Family Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century Delagoa Bay 'Kathleen Mavourneen,' 430 Vanish- ing London : Christ's Hospital Ships of War on Land Morris as a Man of Business Simon Fraser Orientation in Interments, 431 " Col peara " Latin Motto Old London Taverns Sargent Family "Anyone," "Every- one," 432 Detached Sheet " Crong " Dutton Family, 433 St. Christopher and Laughter Sir Simeon Steward Bonaparte Ballad, 434 Fortescue, 435 Lizard Folk-lore Surnames Sisters with same Christian Name Great Exhibition' H.E.D.,' 436' Troth of Gilbert a Beckett ' Coronation of Queen Victoria Duration of Life in Seeds, 437" Qui vive ? "Ring of Elizabeth Allusion in Words- worth Painted and Engraved Portraits Col. Thomas Cooper, 438.
NOTES ON BOOKS : Ridgeway's ' Early Age of Greece ' Piper's 'Church Towers of Somersetshire ' Robson's ' Cathedral Church of St. David's.'
Notices to Correspondents.
ECCLESIASTICAL "PECULIARS."
A PECULIAR is, or rather was, a place ecclesiastically exempt from the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese. By an Act of Parliament, 10 & 11 Victoria, pursuant to recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Com- missioners, it was ordained that such exemp- tion should be abolished, and that all places where the privilege existed should be brought under jurisdiction of the ordinary. Thus, with a few unimportant exceptions, it may be said that peculiars are a thing of the past ; so entirely, indeed, that they are wrapped in a general oblivion, and I have had some diffi- culty in obtaining information concerning them.* Therefore it may be well worth while to put on record, not indeed a history, but such a gathering of facts as I have been able to make.
A peculiar was " exempt " as being subject to some other jurisdiction. How such exclu- sive rights grew up or were obtained it is not always easy to see. But we know that the Popes claimed and exercised the right of ex- empting abbeys from episcopal jurisdiction.
- I have found no help at all from the Indexes of
'N.&Q.'
Mitred abbots, being as great men as bishops,
would defy the bishop in their own domains.
The kings asserted the same right. No doubt
also powerful nobles, building churches on
their property, would be likely to assert an
exclusive authority over them, holding, and
sometimes alienating, such right. The Arch-
bishop of Canterbury held a large number of
peculiars, an ancient prescription having
given to him exclusive right in every place
where the see held property. I find it stated
in Rudder's * History of Gloucestershire '
(1779), under 'Bibury,' that this rule was
made by Archbishop Lanf ranc ; but I have
not been able to verify the statement. For
the superintendence of these a Court of
Peculiars was established in London, as
Blackstone notes ; and here, for a sample of
the oblivion which has so greatly covered
these matters, I may state that whereas
'Whitaker's Almanack' for this year 1901
locates the "Vicar-General's Office for granting
Marriage Licences, and Court of Peculiars," at
3, Creed Lane, Ludgate Hill, on inquiry at
the place I learnt from the officials whom I
saw that they had never even heard of the
existence of such a court, which must have
expired about 1848, when the Act of Parlia-
ment abolished peculiars. There were also
peculiars belonging to bishops, to capitular
and collegiate booties, to deans and other
members of a chapter as such. On the
alienation of the abbey lands the jurisdic-
tion of the peculiars commonly passed to the
impro^riators. Some places also there were
in which the incumbent was himself the
ordinary, holding his own quasi - episcopal
court, sometimes also exercising jurisdiction
over other neighbouring parishes, mostly a
remnant from the former power of a monastic
house. By the statute 25 Henry VIIL, cap. 19,
it was enacted that all appeals from the
jurisdiction of abbots, priors, and other
heads and governors of monasteries, abbeys,
priories, and other places exempt, which had
hitherto been made to the Bishop of Rome,
should henceforth lie only to the king in
Chancery.
In five peculiars the incumbent bore the title of dean : Battle, Sussex ; Booking, Essex ; Hadleigh, Suffolk (the rector of which place was and still is entitled also Dean of Booking) ; Middleham, Yorkshire ; St. Buryan, Cornwall. In the last two the title was abolished when the parishes were subdivided c. 1850. There were no others that I know of. There is, indeed, a titular Dean of Stamford in the diocese of Lin- coln ; but the deanery is not attached to the rectory of Stamford, and it is at present
