Notes and Queries, Number 07, December 15, 1849. Various

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      A banquett ready in y'e next room.

      The above seems to have been a family dinner. Sir Edward married, for his second wife, a daughter of Sir Ashbornham, as appears by the following entry:—

      In another entry we have—

      The day of the month is torn out. It would almost seem as if this was the wedding dinner, on the occasion of the marriage of the Chief Justice with Lady Dering's mother; at all events the reunion of the family in London was caused by that event.

      Banquet was the name given to a dessert, and it was usually set out in another room.

      The large baking pear is still called warden in many counties.

      Appended to the above is a bill of the items of the "banquet," with the cost of hire for the glass plates; but it is so hopelessly illegible that I will not venture to give it. Many of the items, as far as I can read them, are not to be found in "the books," and are quite new to me.

      Having had no small experience in deciphering hopeless scribblings, I think I may pronounce this to be better left alone than given in its present confused state.

      Ryarsh Vicarage.

      MONETA SANCTÆ HELENÆ

      As a subscriber to your valuable publication, allow me to suggest that it might, from time to time, be open to contributions explaining obscure passages or words, which often occur in the works of mediæval writers, and more especially in early English records. So far as English usages and customs are concerned, the Glossary of Du Cange is of comparatively little value to the English student; many terms, indeed, being wrongly interpreted in all editions of that work. Take, for example, the word "tricesima," the explanation of which is truly ridiculous; under "berefellarii," the commentary is positively comic; and many other instances might be cited. At the same time, it would be presumptuous to speak otherwise than in terms of the highest respect and admiration of Du Cange and his labours. The errors to which I allude were the natural consequences of a foreigner's imperfect knowledge of English law and English customs; still it is to be lamented that they should have remained uncorrected in the later editions of the Glossary; and I take it to be our duty to collect and publish, where feasible, materials for an English dictionary of mediæval Latin. It is in your power materially to advance such a work, and under that impression I venture to send the present "Note."

      In the Wardrobe Account of the 55th year of Henry the Third, it is stated that among the valuables in the charge of the keeper of the royal wardrobe, there was a silken purse, containing "monetam Sancte Helene." It is well known that, during the middle ages, many and various objects were supposed to possess talismanic virtues. Of this class were the coins attributed to the mother of Constantine, the authenticity of which is questioned by Du Cange, in his treatise "de Inferioris ævi numismatibus." He observes, also, that the same name was given, vulgarly, to almost all the coins of the Byzantine emperors, not only to those bearing the effigies of St. Helena, but indeed to all marked with a cross, which were commonly worn suspended from the neck as phylacteries; "hence," he subjoins, "we find that these coins are generally perforated." It was quite in accordance with the superstitious character of Henry the Third that coins of St. Helena should be preserved in his wardrobe, among numerous other amulets and relics. But what was the peculiar virtue attributed to such coins? Du Cange, in the same treatise, says, on the authority of "Bosius," that they were a remedy against the "comitialem morbum," or epilepsy. The said "Bosius," or rather "Bozius," wrote a ponderous work, "de Signis Ecclesiæ Dei" (a copy of which, by the by, is not to be seen in the library of the British Museum, although there are two editions of it in the Bodleian), in which he discourseth as follows:—"Monetæ adhuc aliquot exstant, quæ in honorem Helenæ Augustæ, et inventæ crucis, cum hujusmodi imaginibus excusæ antiquitus fuerunt. Illis est præsens remedium adversus morbum comitialem: et qui hodie vivit Turcarum Rex Amurathes, quamvis a nobis alienus, vim sanctam illarum expertus solet eas gestare; e morbo namque hujusmodi interdum laborat. Nummi quoque Sancti Ludovici Francorum regis mirifice valent adversus nonnullos morbos."—Lib. xv. sig. 68.

      This mention of the sultan Amurath carrying these coins about his person as a precaution against a disease to which he was subject, and indeed the whole passage shows a belief in their efficacy was still prevalent in the sixteenth century, when Bozius wrote. It only remains to add, that Du Cange, in his Glossary, does not enumerate СКАЧАТЬ