140
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. FEB. is, 1902.
not infrequently contradict each other, for not only
were the mediseval chroniclers sometimes almost as
regardless of chronological accuracy as we moderns,
but there were various ways of recording time in
common use, so that without that minute know-
ledge which so very few of us possess it is otten
impossible to tell what system the writer had taken
for his guide. We are pleased to find that as to
names o! persons Mr. Morison has been content to
use those which are commonly accepted, though he
must have been aware that it would lay him open
to adverse criticism. We need not say that this is,
strictly speaking, an error which on certain occa-
sions ought to be sternly condemned; but the
great point in a work of reference such as this is
that it should be handy, so that we can find our
way about in it, and be spared the pains of racking
our brains to remember how the name of some
obscure potentate was spelt by his contemporaries.
The pedigrees near the end of the volume will be
found useful, but they might have been made fuller
than they are with advantage. That of the house
of Bonaparte is miserably thin. Surely all the
descendants of Charles, the father of Napoleon I.,
should have been given. It is true that to-day no
member of the race is among the sovereigns of
Europe; but it is mere pedantry not to regard
them as scions of a royal house with chances in the
future. We think, too, that it might have been
well to give a list of the illegitimate children of
Charles II. and James II,, with their marriages.
Readers of the history of the Stuart time do not,
we have observed, always carry the needful infor-
mation in their minds. The compiler has given
more than he promised. The title-page leads us to
anticipate that the end would be reached in 1870,
but the entries are carried on for ten further years.
Patent Rolls of the Reign of Henry III., 1216-1225.
(Stationery Office.)
THIS, the earliest volume of the Patent Rolls of King Henry III., has not the name of the editor on its title-page, but the preface is signed by Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte, and we learn that the text has been prepared by Mr. J. G. Black. We believe that there are no omissions or condensations. The text is given as it stands in its original Latin. From the second to the ninth year of the reign the rolls are in duplicate, or one is a transcript of the other. The latter is the more probable, as words or passages cancelled in the original are almost always left out in the duplicate.
The volume must be of great interest not only to historical students, but to all persons engaged in topographical inquiries or on the history and growth of surnames. Members of the great families are mentioned over and over again, and we encounter a very fair share of the common folk. Surnames, though coming into use, were not by any means stable as yet. Men changed them at will, or had them altered for them when they moved from one place to another. In a list of certain persons, all of whom, we may presume, lived in the neighbourhood of Tavistock, we find a Robertum Cocum, an Adam Fabrum, and an Adam Longum. These people were no doubt called by their friends Cook, Smith, and Long. Did the last one, we wonder, acquire his name because he was abnormally tall ? or was it given him on account of his occupying a long strip of ploughland or meadow ? The latter is, we think, the more probable suggestion. A man called Hum- phrey de la Slowe lived in Buckinghamshire in
1225. There is a possibility that he may have
acquired his name from some town or village, but
we strongly incline to the belief that it originated
from some boggy place or large puddle near to
which he lived. The number of safe-conducts on
returning to the king's peace is very large. Any
one might be able to make a most interesting list
of those who had been adherents of Louis of France
and the barons from the documents here registered.
We trust if this be ever done the names will be, so
far as is possible, arranged under counties. We
shall then in some degree be able to estimate to
what extent the manifold injustices of the previous
reign had moved men to fight for their liberties.
We believe the tyranny had been far more crushing
in some parts of the country than in others.
There is not so much regarding the action of the Pope in this country as we should have expected. We have, however, in 1217 a notice of the Papal absolution of the lords who had been in rebellion, conveyed through the hands of the Bishop of Chichester, and we also find a letter from Henry, dated 16 October, 1220, thanking the Pope for good offices in his behalf.
In the index, under ' Castles,' there is a long list of fortresses in the king's hands or fortified by him, which will be of frequent use to those studying the disturbed time to which this volume relates.
We must call special attention to the following
notices :
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WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately.
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E. H. Y. The lines you send
A cottage he saw, with a double coach-house,
Full of ton, full of taste, and gentility :
And the Devil he smiled, for his favourite vice
Is the pride that apes humility are a sad hash of a quatrain in ' The Devil's Drive,' by Coleridge and Southey, to be found in most editions of the works of these poets.
S. H. ("Mit Dummheit," &c.). From Schiller, ' Jungfrau von Orleans,' III. vi., though not quite correctly quoted.
NOTICE.
Editorial communications should be addressed to I " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries '"Advertise- ] ments and Business Letters to " The Publisher" at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.G.
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