Chapter XXXIII: The Gilds of Lincolnshire--(Continued) (3)

THE ordinary shape of a great mace is well known, and needs little description. A shaft and a bell-like head; on the base of the bell are the royal arms, and the bell is ornamented by an open-arched crown with orb and cross on the top. The sides of the bell are divided into four compartments by demi-female figures; and the rose, thistle, harp, and fleur-de-lis, each occupies a compartment, and is crowned. The shaft is divided into stages, and flying supports occur beneath the bell, and the shaft and base are covered with foliage. The heads frequently unscrew, and form loving cups. At Beaumaris the bells of the two maces contain drinking cups, and at Pwllheli the mace is nothing else but a two-handled drinking cup, with an oak pole stuck up its hollow foot.

The sergeants’ maces are simpler in form, and the crown is a mere open circle of fleur-de-lis and crosses.

At Nottingham the sheriff has a mace, and at one or two places there are maces for the mayoress.

When the Crown visits a town, the mayor should give up his staff of office to the king, or queen, and himself bear the mace before his sovereign. At Coventry, when William III. visited that city, the mayor carried the mace and an alderman the sword. To a royal personage other than his sovereign, the staff should not be given up, unless that personage be there to represent the sovereign, but the mayor should carry the mace. In 1503 the Lord Mayor of York himself carried the mace before the Princess Margaret. On the occasion of royal visits to the City of London, the Lord Mayor tenders to the sovereign his jewelled sceptre. Sometimes the mace itself is given up to the sovereign, as at Stafford, where the mayor kissed the mace and handed it to James I., who admired it greatly, and then returned it. At Cambridge the mayor delivered his mace to Queen Anne, who did the like.

Many corporations, in addition to their maces, possess swords of state or honour. According to the best authorities, the oldest symbols of municipal powers were the sword and the dragon, both of Roman origin, the one being the cohortal ensign of the Romans, the other the insignia of Supreme Justice.

“At Amiens (says Dr. Thompson in his Eng. Mun. Hist.), the insignia
of Supreme Justice consisted of two swords of antique shape,
carried in the hands of two officials, and a similar custom
prevailed among almost all the great Corporations of France, which
undoubtedly had a continuity from Roman time.”

The sword, then, is the symbol of criminal jurisdiction, as the mace is of civil. The County Palatinate of Chester had a state sword, which is figured in the Visitation of that county in 1580, published by the Harleian Society; while the Bishop of Durham, so long as he was a temporal power and had criminal jurisdiction, was presented with a sword on taking possession of his see.

The right to have a sword borne before a mayor was originally conferred either by charter, which may often have merely confirmed a previous practice, or by a royal present of a sword. Thus James I. gave the City of Canterbury a sword to be borne before the mayor. Hull has two swords, one given by Henry VIII., the other by Charles I. The authorities of Carlisle purchased a “Sword of Honour” in 1635-6 for £4 13s. The blade at least was second-hand, for it bears the date of 1509, and was made at Milan. The authority to bear it was given by royal charter in 1637, but it was probably purchased in London by a deputation who went there to arrange about procuring the charter. On the locket of the sheath is cut the letter S in great size, and I have never found a satisfactory account of what it means, unless it stands for sword. Our governing charter at Carlisle gives us the right to have a sword by authorising us to have an official “qui erit et vocabitur Portator Gladii nostri coram Mayore Civitatis prædictæ.”

The grant by charter of a sword differs in various places: at King’s Lynn the sword is to be sheathed, at Chester it is to be borne before the mayor “in our absence,” and point upright. I take it that the sword should always be point upright, and that the Corporations of London and York are wrong in putting it on their achievements of arms with the point down. I take it, it should never be lowered but in the presence of the Crown. The swords are generally sheathed, but the sword at Great Yarmouth is carried unsheathed in time of a European war. At Lichfield a sword is kept permanently fixed over the mayor’s pew, and sheathed, but the sheath is withdrawn when the mayor attends church. At Carmarthen the sword, by charter of Henry VIII., is ordered to be “freely and lawfully” borne before the “said mayor in manner as is accustomed to be done in our City of London.” A curious story comes from Coventry, that in 1384 the sword was carried behind the mayor because he had not done justice. The Corporation of Chester and the dean and chapter of that place fell out about the sword; the ecclesiastics objected to the mayor bringing his sword to church, but it was decided that

“As often as the mayor repaired to the church to hear divine
service or sermon, or upon any just occasion, he was to be at
liberty to have the sword of the city borne before him with the
point upwards.”

The information I have before me only furnishes the names of five places as having CAPS OF ESTATE OR MAINTENANCE, namely, London, York, Coventry, Exeter, and Waterford. They are generally worn by the swordbearer, and I imagine that many more places than I have mentioned provide their swordbearers with fur coverings for their heads; but it is not to be taken for granted that every fancy hat, whether of fur or not, worn by a swordbearer is a CAP OF MAINTENANCE. Gwillim defines a cap of maintenance as a cap of dignity, worn by dukes in token of good government and freedom. Planché makes it the same as the “Abacot,” a cap worn during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and commencement of the sixteenth centuries by royal and noble personages, varying in form, and ultimately taking a shape not unlike a Glengarry cap, made of crimson velvet and lined with ermine, and occasionally placed by heralds beneath crests instead of the ordinary wreath. It appears of that shape as a crest to the arms of the City of York, but at London, both in the armorial bearings and on the swordbearer’s head, it is of fur, of the shape of an inverted flower-pot. At Coventry it is also of fur, and round, while at Exeter I believe it is of red velvet. The history of this is known: it was presented to the City of Exeter by Henry VII., and was worn by the swordbearer until lately, when, on the suggestion of Mr. Tucker (Somerset Herald), it was ordered to be carried before the mayor on a cushion. I do not know the history of the other fur caps of maintenance I have enumerated. If I did I might be able to throw some light on the matter, but I own to being a little in the dark as to caps of maintenance. If, as Gwillim says, the cap of maintenance is a mark of freedom, its association with the swordbearer (the sword denoting criminal jurisdiction) may mean freedom from all extraneous criminal jurisdiction.

If this is so, I would suggest to the powers that be to lay down the following rules:--

That every mayor may and should have a mace; the mayor of a borough
with a separate commission of the peace--a mace and a sword. If, in
addition, his borough has quarter sessions of its own, then he
should also have a cap of maintenance.

The Corporations of Colchester, Dover, Southampton, Norwich, Beaumaris, Preston, Great Yarmouth, Poole, Rochester, Boston, Waterford, &c., possess SILVER OARS, the symbol of the maritime jurisdiction once enjoyed by those places, but abolished by the Act of 1840, placing all creeks and rivers in Great Britain under the High Court of Admiralty. The origin of this symbol is not known, but it is a natural one, and is, or was [for the Court is merged, I suppose, into the High Court of Justice] the badge or mace of the High Court of Admiralty, and was laid before the Judge, as the great mace used to be laid before the Chancellor, when he presided in Chancery. The one belonging to the High Court of Admiralty is said to be 130 years old, but an older one with the arms of Queen Elizabeth thereon was once in existence. That belonging to the Admiralty of the Cinque Ports is older still. One belongs to the Governor of Bermuda, who has Admiralty jurisdiction. These civic oars, like the maces, divide into two classes: large ones, like that formerly at Boston, or that now at Great Yarmouth, meant to be carried as maces before the mayor; small ones, as at Colchester and Dover, the badges of authority of the water-bailiffs, who showed them, when executing process, as the sergeants-at-mace did their maces. That at Dover is 6 in. long, and is contained in a brass cylindrical box. The Colchester one is 10 in. The one which was sold by Boston in 1832 is 3 ft. 3 in. long, and was carried as a mace; it is of the date of Queen Elizabeth, and is now in the possession of Lord Brownlow. That at Yarmouth is 4 ft. long, and has the Royal arms and those of the borough on the blade. It was presented in 1745, and is of silver gilt. It is carried before the mayor and behind the maces. Rochester possesses both a great and small silver oar.

Much information as to silver oars will be found in the 30th and 31st volumes of the Institute’s Journal.

By far the greatest part of the chains and badges worn by mayors are modern, of various degrees of ugliness, and I certainly hope the antiquaries of a future age will not judge of the art of the nineteenth century from a collection of mayors’ chains. There are exceptions, such as the chain presented to Exeter by the Institute in 1874, which consists of sixteen main links, conjoined by small ones. Of the former, eight are castles, an idea taken from the arms of the city; seven are composed of the letter X, surmounted by a crown; the sixteenth is a cinquefoil, containing a representation of the hat presented to the mayor by Henry VII., and from the cinquefoil depends the badge on which is, in enamel, the arms of the city.

I do not know that a mayor’s chain and badge has any particular symbolism; I do not think that it is in the nature of a “collar.” It merely marks out its wearer as a man of importance, and requires no special authority to authorise its assumption. It is part of the idea of a mayor, inherent in him. But I must protest against some municipalities which have, without any right whatever, provided their mayors with collars of SS. The Lord Mayor of Dublin wears one, but the collar was given to the city by Charles II., so there is no doubt as to his right to wear it; but I think the Lord Mayor of London would find great difficulty in satisfying the College of Arms as to his right to a collar of SS, which was given him (temp. Henry VIII.), not by the Crown, but by a subject, Sir John Alleyne. The town council of Cork coolly ordered a _fac-simile_ of the Dublin one to be provided for their mayor. The council of Derby purchased Lord Denman’s collar of SS, and their mayor wears it. Coventry, Nottingham, Stamford, Kingston-on-Thames, and other places possess modern chains of the “SS pattern,” as the jewellers call it, and their mayors wear them. They might with equal propriety assume the insignia of the Order of the Garter.

The use of chains is not confined to mayors; several other civic dignitaries wear them--sheriffs, and aldermen in some instances. York provides a gold chain for its Lady Mayoress, and is ungallant enough to weigh the chain when it is handed to a new Lady Mayoress, and again when she gives it up; an old scandal asserts that a former Lady Mayoress appropriated some of the links. Hull, which, by the way, possesses a mayor’s chain of the date of 1564, sold its Mayoress’s chain. At many towns the waits, or town musicians, had badges with chains for suspension: these are generally of silver, and the badges bear the arms of the place. Several curious examples exist. Lincoln has a mayor’s ring, but whether it is ancient or not I do not know, nor do I know of any other place.

As to civic robes, I can give no information and lay down no rules. The mayor of Carlisle is one of the few mayors who possess no robe, and I rather congratulate myself thereon. I was utterly unprepared for the gorgeous spectacle presented by my brother mayors at the Mansion House in 1882. Every variety of material, of colour, and of pattern was to be seen that the wildest imagination of the tailor could devise.

Although the mayor of Carlisle has no gown, the unreformed corporation of Carlisle had them in the seventeenth century, as shown by the records of a Court Leet, held on Monday, October 22, 1649:--

“We order (that according to an ancient order) the Aldermen of this
Citty shall attend the Maior upon every Lord’s day to the Church in
their gounes, and likewise to attend the Maior in the Markett-place
at or before the sermon bell to the Church, _sub pena_ vi_s_.
viii_d_. _toties quoties_; and the Common Counsellmen to attend
likewise, _sub pena_ 3s. 4d. _toties quoties_.

“We order that the present bailiffes of this Cittie shall forthwith
provide for either of them a decent gowne for the Honnor of this
Cittie, _sub pena_.”

The lateness of the hour warns me to stop. I daresay many of you think I have been but wasting the evening in gossip over trivial matters. “But,” as Mr. Thompson writes, in his “English Municipal History,”--

“The citizen of olden times looked upon the municipal insignia with
a _political_ significance. When he saw the mace and sword, when he
saw the banner of his community unfurled, his heart exulted at the
thought that his fellow-citizens and he constituted a body enjoying
entire independence, their own civil and criminal jurisdiction, and
a name in the land which kings and lords respected.”

The Name and Office of Port-Reeve.

BY JAMES HURLY PRING, M.D.

_PART II._

(_Continued from Vol. IV. p. 266._)

The transference of the significance of words beyond the scope to which it was originally applied, is so obvious and generally recognised a fact, that I did not consider it necessary to insist more particularly upon it in my former paper.

Many of your readers would doubtless be able to call to mind numerous examples of the kind, and, indeed, I did not credit any of them with being unacquainted with so common and notorious a fact, and one which suggests itself so readily in the instance of the word _port_ which was the word here specially under discussion.

It may, however, under the circumstances, be well to call attention to that very remarkable instance of the kind which has been made familiar to us by Mr. Isaac Taylor, in his “Words and Places.” He states (p. 309) that “on the Mons Palatinus--a name the etymology of which carries us back to the time when the sheep were bleating on the slope--was the residence of the Roman emperors, which, from the site, was called Palati(n)um, or Palatium. Hence the word PALACE has come to be applied to all royal and imperial residences.” And he goes on to observe, that “it is one of the curiosities of language that a petty hill-slope in Italy should have thus transferred its name to a hero of romance, to a German State, to three English counties, to a glass-house at Sydenham, and to all the royal residences in Europe.” The example thus cited is doubtless very marked and extreme of its kind, very different in this respect to the easy and obvious transference of the word _port_ to a city enclosed within _gates_, the contracted word _port_ itself being derived from the Latin _porta_, a city-gate.

When indeed it is considered that, like other Roman towns, each of the numerous cities or towns of Roman Britain which subsequently became a Saxon burh or borough was empowered not only to collect tolls in respect of the objects actually sold at its gates, but also (as at present in Continental towns) to levy octroi (_ansaria_) on all provisions and wares brought within the gates for subsequent sale at the markets (the _Fora venalia_) inside, it is easy to understand not only how such towns speedily came to acquire a mercantile character, but also how the word _port_, originally restricted to the gates where such extensive transactions were carried on, would at no distant period become applied also to the town itself.

When, therefore, the learned Professor Stubbs, now Bishop of Chester, derives the word _port_ from _porta_, as referring to “a mart or city of merchants,” it is only reasonable to suppose that the recognition of this change was present to his mind, and that he had in view that advanced period in Saxon times when the word port had already become transferred from the gates themselves to the town which was enclosed within them, and was apparently applied indifferently to either. But however this may be, we may at least be absolutely assured that he never intended to imply that _porta_, which carries us back to the original derivation, _a portando aratrum_, did not primarily and originally mean a city-gate.

It is not my intention to follow Mr. Round through all his erratic criticisms of my paper. The greater part of them may safely be left to the discretion of your readers; at the same time, the want of candour by which some of his remarks are characterised, will not fail to be noted. Thus, for example, when he dilates upon the occurrence of the word “underlying,” instead of “unlying,” in my reference to the Laws of Athelstan, everyone will at once perceive that this accidental error of transcription (for which I cannot account) is at least quite immaterial to the point at issue, which turns entirely upon and is wholly centred in the question of the signification of the word _port_. It is to an examination, therefore, of Mr. Round’s strictures on my use of this word _port_ that I shall now advert.

Mr. Round objects to the use of the word _port_ as synonymous with _gate_ where it occurs in the words “out of _port_,” or as I have rendered it “outside the port,” in the Laws of Athelstan; he rejects the identification with or derivation from _porta_, of the word “port,” as insisted on by Professor Stubbs, and he limits the word _port_ to mean only “a market or trading town,” totally discarding the notion of its having anything whatever to do with “a gate.”

And first, as Mr. Round asserts that my rendering “outside the _port_ or _gate_” “is a mere gloss of my own on the word _port_,” perhaps he will be good enough to tell us in what light he regards the instance which he himself adduces of “New_port_ gate in Lincoln”? Would he in this case, according to his own rule, have the word _port_ rendered New _market-town_ gate? Again, in the case of the “Port of East-gate,” (_portam de East Gatâ_,) to which reference is made in the Charter of Henry I. to Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, it is quite manifest that here, as indeed in Newport gate, the Anglo-Saxon “geat,” on which Mr. Round dwells so fondly, is nothing more than the frequently observed reduplication of synonyms,[24] caused in this instance by the Saxons affixing this additional name of their own to the object, which under the Roman name of port or porta conveyed to them no intelligible signification. When, therefore, Mr. Round stigmatises my “rendering outside the port or gate” as “a mere ‘gloss’ of my own on the word port,” he must surely have overlooked these and similar instances in which the word _port_ is used synonymously with _gate_, and more especially the fact that precisely the same rendering of the word _port_ was given nearly three hundred years ago by no less an authority than Camden. Referring to the great Roman wall, Camden states that the “two forts called Castle steeds are to be seen in the wall, and then a place called _Port-gate_[25] where (as the word in both languages fairly evinces) there was formerly _a Gate_ (or sally-_port_) through it.[26]”

And here if we take the word sally-_port_ thus presented to us, and I may add to this also the word _port_-cullis, there are few, I apprehend, except Mr. Round, who would contend that in these instances the word _port_ means a “market town,” and has no reference to “a gate.” Even in the case of the actual word _port-reeve_ itself, Sharon Turner is found giving the word “port” its true meaning when he explicitly states that “the _port_-gerefa, or the gerefa of the _gate_, was witness to all purchases without the _gate_”[27] thus in fact showing how this eminent Saxon historian and scholar read and understood the passage in the Laws of Athelstan. Numerous examples of the same kind might easily be adduced, and I might refer to those given in my former paper, which, like the common occurrence of the term _extra portam_, and similar illustrations of the use of _porta_, Mr. Round seems to have found it convenient to ignore. It is needless, however, to multiply further instances to the same effect.

Mr. Round next proceeds to point out that “the markets were held in the _forum_,” “that we should consequently expect the name of a market town to be derived from _forum_ rather than from _porta_,” and that the “_forum_ so far from being at the gate (_porta_) was unquestionably in the very centre of the settlement,” and that “as the markets were in no sense held at the _porta_, we are precluded from deriving port from _porta_”! This unique and somewhat anomalous specimen of argument, together with the unnecessary piece of information as regards the relative situation of the forum and the _porta_, which Mr. Round feels “compelled” to point out in order to correct the error of Professor Stubbs “in identifying ‘port’ with the Latin _porta_,” may all be confidently remitted to the just discrimination of your readers. I would, however, observe with respect to Mr. Round’s remarks on the position of the forum, that it was scarcely necessary for him to go to Silchester and to Cilurnum in exemplification of the well-known fact that the forum was situated in the centre of a Roman town or city. This fact, indeed, is even now amply attested by the lines of conformation discoverable in many of our old borough towns, of which Taunton itself, the town from which I write, affords a very apt and striking illustration.

I think it well here to state that the foregoing observations were written in reply to Mr. Round’s first paper, but it was deemed advisable to defer their publication until after the appearance of a second promised paper, in which Mr. Round undertook to prove that port in Port-reeve was derived from _portus_, and not from _porta_, and stated that he would offer “a most satisfactory explanation,” which would “completely justify us in accepting the _portus_ derivation.” Now, however, that the second paper has appeared, it would seem that he must have found the handling of this “_portus_ derivation” a more awkward business than he had anticipated, for the result is that he abandons it altogether, and arrives at the conclusion that the Romans could never “have called an inland town a _portus_,” nor in his opinion “_a porta_” either!

Having thus made a summary despatch of this “most satisfactory derivation,” Mr. Round next shifts his ground _in toto_, and calls on us in his second paper to accept a new theory of his own, which he is about to propound, and by which he “claims _port_ as an English word, in itself distinct from the Latin words _Porta_ and _Portus_.” Whether he will be more successful with this new “theory” than he has been with his unfortunate “_portus_ derivation” we are to be left in uncertainty until the appearance of his third paper. In the meantime, if in claiming port as an English word Mr. Round means an Anglo-Saxon word, I would observe I am aware of its occurrence in Lye’s “Anglo-Saxon Dictionary” (fol., vol. ii.), where we find “Port, a port. Portus. To tham porte, ad portum, Bed. 4. I. Civitas. Oppidum. Into tham porte. In civitatem; Ælfr. Gr. c. 5. Potius tamen, _Porta_ civitatis vel oppidi.” Thus, then, we see _port_ even here referred back to _porta_, a city-gate, as the source of its original and most accurate derivation or meaning.

It seems somewhat strange, amid the great uncertainty attending his own views, as shown by the variety of derivations which he has proposed, that Mr. Round should have failed to avail himself of the opportunity afforded him by the Celtic. In the excellent dictionary, the “Antiquæ Linguæ Britannicæ Thesaurus,” by the Rev. T. Richards, we find “Porth, a door, a porch, a haven,” and we learn that the same word exists in the Armoric. I am quite aware of the great similarity, or as it has been termed “the cognate character,” of many Celtic and Latin words, but notwithstanding this knowledge, and all that Mr. Round has also advanced on the subject, I would still maintain, in the instance of port-reeve, the usually adopted derivation of _port_ from the Latin _porta_.

All notice has likewise been omitted by Mr. Round of the word _port way_, and the customarily accepted Roman significance attaching to it, and also of the common words _porter_ (a door-keeper), and _portal_, the derivation of which is, I believe, universally referred to the Latin _porta_.

The July number of THE ANTIQUARIAN MAGAZINE has now brought us Mr. Round’s third paper. Instead, however, of its containing, as we had been led to expect, some more fully developed account of his “natural and intelligible process by which the English word _port_ was formed,” and some evidence in proof of his strange and as yet unsupported assertion that the word _port_ was originally “coined by the English,” we find that he merely reverts to a further consideration of the word _port_, touching on the question of Newport gate, and barely alluding to the Welsh _porth_, two points to which it will be observed that I have here just adverted somewhat more fully.

I now apprehend that I have been mistaken, but must confess that it never occurred to me that Mr. Round’s conjecture in his second paper as to the manner in which the minds of “the English pirates” would be likely to be affected by the word _portus_, was all he meant to tell us respecting “the natural and intelligible process by which the English word _port_ was formed,” or that he could seriously propose to put forward this crude assumption of his own for general acceptance on a question of this kind.

Mr. Round’s observations in his third paper are not of a character to make it necessary for me in any way to alter or modify anything that I have already said. Indeed, so far as his introduction of the authority of Mr. Freeman is concerned, he has contributed only to strengthen my position, for the passage which he quotes from Mr. Freeman’s “English Towns and Districts,” (a work which I have not enjoyed the advantage of seeing,) may, _mutatis mutandis_, be equally well applied to the word port-reeve.

If we merely substitute the word _port_ for “name of the gate,” and _in Port-reeve_ for “Nova Porta,” the sentence will read thus: “The abiding Latin port, in port-reeve, of itself goes far to show that there could have been no long gap between Roman or British and English occupation.” With this slight and quite legitimate alteration, (for the whole force of Mr. Freeman’s statement hangs on the presence of the word _porta_,) it would be difficult to express the point for which I have been contending in more apposite terms, and the circumstance that Mr. Round sees fit to question Mr. Freeman’s statement because _he_ can “find no evidence for it,” is a matter regarding which I do not feel myself called upon to enter.

As Mr. Round now informs us that his paper is “to be continued,” and it appears to be uncertain when it will be brought to a conclusion, I deem it best no longer to defer forwarding this reply, more especially as he proposes to make some other words, with which I do not find myself in any way concerned, the subject of his future criticisms.

In conclusion, I would observe that the result of my former paper was to bring me many interesting communications on the subject of which it treats.

From the general tenor of these communications, as well as from other sources, I gather that the ancient office of port-reeve is rapidly falling into desuetude, though in some comparatively rare instances the Port-reeve still remains the chief officer of the borough, and is invested with considerable power and privileges. Thus, in an obliging communication which I received from the Port-Reeve of Tavistock, that gentleman is good enough to inform me that he not only still remains the returning officer of the borough, but that he also enjoys a seat on the County Bench, as J.P. for Devon, solely by right and in virtue of his office as Port-reeve, a fact which I conceive is sufficiently rare and interesting to merit being placed on record.

The Salic Law.

BY CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D., _Author of “The Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe.”_

THE Salic law, which still prevails in some parts of Europe, is supposed to have been instituted in the sixth century by Clovis, or Pharamond, King of the Franks. In Shakespeare’s play of “King Henry V.,” Act i. Scene 2, King Henry, addressing the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely, thus asks them to expound the Salic Law:--

“My learned Lord, we pray you to proceed:
And justly and religiously unfold,
Why the law Salique, that they have in France
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury in his reply mentions the ancient tradition that this law was instituted by Pharamond, and continues:--

“The land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe,
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women,
In some dishonest manners of their life,
Established then this law--to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land.”

The very prosy speech of the Archbishop, from which this is an extract, bears no trace of the fine hand of Shakespeare, and was copied almost _verbatim_ from Holinshed.

President Henault, borrowing from previous writers--who wrote from tradition, without adequate proof or authority for the statements they made or adopted--says that it was Clovis who instituted and signed the Salic Law in A.D. 511, the year of his death. Voltaire says that Clovis could neither read nor write, and that it is uncertain whether his name was Clovis, Clodvic, or Hildovic. Voltaire states also that there are two versions of the text of this Salic Law, each of which differs from the other.

Though the word _Salic_ is by no means uncertain in its meaning, its etymology is so very obscure and undecided as to have puzzled all the French, German, and English philologists who have flourished since the invention of printing. According to Worcester’s Dictionary the word was applied to a body of laws framed by the Salians or Salian Franks, about the beginning of the fifth century, but who the Salians were, no one has yet been able to explain. The derivation from the River Saal, which Holinshed calls _Sala_, is wholly untenable, as well as the imputation on the virtue of the German ladies of the district through which that river runs. The Salic law never prevailed in any part of Germany, but was peculiar to such Keltic nations as France and Spain. It continued to prevail in France until the abolition of the monarchy under Louis Philippe in 1848, and was never a question so much as debated in the Imperial monarchy under the first or the third Napoleons. In Spain it was abrogated only by Ferdinand VII., within living memory, in favour of his daughter, the infant Isabella, whose accession to the throne led to a civil war, which cannot yet be said to have ended, as long as Don Carlos or his family exist and keep their pretensions alive. On this subject Voltaire, in his “Philosophical Dictionary,” has some pithy remarks. According to Froissart he says, “The kingdom of France is of such great nobleness that it never can allow the succession to go to a female,” and adds, “but one must confess that this decision is very unpolite for England, for Naples, for Hungary, and for Russia, in which latter country four reigning Empresses have sat upon the throne.”

In the French “Etymological Dictionary” of Messrs. Noel and Carpentier, are cited various surmises as to the origin of the word, among others that _salique_ is a corruption of _gallique_, that it comes from _Salle_--the great hall of a palace, from an imaginary tribe of Germans called in Latin _salice_, from _si aliquis_, the first words of the Latin document in which the Salic law was promulgated; from _sal_, salt, and from _Salogart_, the name of one of Pharamond’s jurisconsults, or counsellors. Who shall decide when so many doctors disagree? Yet as the law was a Keltic law, passed by a Gaelic speaking people some centuries before the formation of the actual French language, search ought to be made for the derivation of the word in Keltic sources. We there find _So lagh_, the “excellent or befitting law.” This was a name very likely to have been given to such an ordinance by barbarians, who thought that none but men and warriors were fit to govern them, or lead their armies to the conflicts in which they were perpetually engaged. The name of Pharamond himself was purely Keltic, and signified a Highlander or mountaineer, from _fear_, a man, and _monadh_ a mountain. The four jurisconsults who are reported to have drawn up the ungallant law at the request of Pharamond are given by Voltaire as Visogast, Harogast, Salogast, and Vindogast. In these names the final syllable, gast, appears to have been a title given to learned men of the Keltic tribes of the period, from _gasda_, or _gasta_, expert, or skilful. Brachet’s “French Etymological Dictionary,” printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1882, and advertised to have been revised by the French Academy, does not contain the word salique or salic, which looks as if M. Brachet was not satisfied that it is really of French origin.

* * * * *

LORD BRABOURNE, after many years’ collecting, has brought together a unique series of papers relating to the early history of Australia. These have just been purchased by the New South Wales Government. The batch consists mainly of letters formerly in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks, long president of the Royal Society, and deeply interested in New South Wales, since he accompanied Captain Cook in the discovery of that country. The letters cover a period between 1772-1815. Among them are letters of Captain Cook, his companion Captain Clark, and many from later discoverers and visitors to the new lands.

Lines on Opening an Ancient Barrow.[28]

BY THE REV. W. LISLE BOWLES.

DURING the examination of one of these ancient burial-places by Sir Richard C. Hoare, a storm of thunder and lightning surprised the antiquaries. “Our only place of refuge,” says Sir Richard, “was the barrow, which had been excavated to a considerable depth. The lightning flashed upon our spades and iron instruments, and the large flints poured down upon us from the summit of the barrow, so abundantly and so forcibly, that we were obliged to quit our hiding-place, and abide the pelting of the pitiless storm upon the bleak and unsheltered down.” Mr. Bowles, being of the party, sent the following beautiful poem the next morning to Sir R. C. Hoare:--

“Let me, let me sleep again;
Thus methought, in feeble strain,
Plained from its disturbed bed
The spirit of the mighty dead.
O’er my mouldered ashes cold
Many a century slow hath rolled,
Many a race hath disappeared
Since my giant form I reared;
Since my flinted[29] arrow flew,
Since my battle-horn I blew;
Since my brazen dagger’s pride
Glittered on my warlike side,
Which, transported o’er the wave,
Kings of distant ocean gave;[30]
Ne’er hath glared the eye of day
My death-bed secrets to betray,
Since with muttered Celtic rhyme,
The white-haired Druid bard sublime,
’Mid the stillness of the night,
Waked the sad and solemn rite,
The rite of death; and o’er my bones
Were piled the monumental stones.
Passing near the hallowed ground,
The Roman gazed upon the mound;
And murmured, with a secret sigh,
‘There, in dust, the mighty lie.’
Ev’n while his heart with conquest glowed,
While the high-raised flinty road[31]
Echoed to the prancing hoof,
And golden eagles flamed aloof,
And flashing to the orient light
His bannered legions glittered bright,
The Victor of the world confessed
A dark awe shivering at his breast.
Shall, then, the Sons of distant days
Unpunished on my relics gaze?
Hark! Hesus rushes from on high,
Vindictive thunder rocks the sky;
See, Taranis[32] descends to save
His hero’s violated grave;
And shakes, beneath the lightning’s glare,
The sulphur from his blazing hair.
Hence! yet though my grave ye spoil,
Dark oblivion mocks your toil:
Deep the clouds of ages roll,
History drops her mouldering scroll,
And never shall reveal the name
Of him who scorns her transient fame.”

The Ancient Etruscan City of Luni.

BY LA SIGNORA CAMPION.

“Lunai portum est operæ cognoscere, cives.
Cor jubet hoc Ennî.”--PERSIUS, _Sat._

JUST outside the walls of Sarzana, in Liguria, and scattered over about five or six acres of the partly cultivated plain, may be found portions of the remains of the once important and thriving Etruscan city of Luni. Though it is accessible from La Spezia within half an hour by railway, yet it lies sufficiently off the beaten track of travellers to this part of Italy to be scarcely mentioned in the guide-books, and therefore it has escaped the notice which it deserves. Some account of the spot and of its early history, so far as I have been able to trace it, may therefore be acceptable. The place was at one time a trading town upon the Gulf of Spezia, and is said to have been founded by the Etrurian Tarchon.[33] (See Strabo, lib. v.; Cato, Origines xxv.)

Luni--“La Superba,” as she was proudly called of old--was situated at the head of a bay, or rather arm, of the Mediterranean, forming a commodious and deep natural harbour, and backed by that spur of the Apennines which forms the Carrara Mountains, so famous for their exquisite marble. But for the numerous fragments of ancient anchors, chains, masts of vessels, and other objects which are now and again being brought to light, and for the vast blocks of stone forming the ancient quay of the town, some of which may still be seen _in situ_, it would be difficult to realise that here was the identical port so admiringly mentioned by Ennius and by Strabo, and so famous as having sent forth armed vessels three thousand years ago to assist the Greeks in the siege of Troy, and from which so many thousands of tons of the Carrara marbles were exported to Italy and other countries in more recent times.

It is on record that Titus Manlius here embarked the army with which in B.C. 537 he started to quell the rebellion of the Sardi. From this port, also, the Emperor Claudius sailed on his attempt to conquer Britain.

Luni continued to rank as one of the most prosperous cities of Etruria, till it was harassed and invaded by the indomitable Ligurians, who made themselves masters of it. Wrested from them by the Romans, and subjected to the Republic, the power of Luni rapidly declined; and, as though to hasten her ruin, successive inundations of the River Magra choked up her harbour with their deposits, while the sea, as if in concert with its tributary, receded from her shore. In 1015 A.D. Luni was taken and partially destroyed by the Saracens, and in 1185 Frederick Barbarossa handed her over to the authorities of the Christian Church, who made the town an Episcopal See.

In connection with the early history of the neighbouring city of La Spezia will be found the names of various bishops of Luni; but the latter see extended over a period of little more than a century, for we find that in consequence of the malarious and deadly exhalations arising from the stagnant pools left by the Magra’s floods and the retirement of the sea from the bay, Luni had to be completely abandoned about 1300 A.D.

The site has been hitherto but little explored, but considerable quantities of pottery, articles in bronze, coins, mosaics, &c., are from time to time turned up by the peasants when cultivating their little plots of land. These treasures have mostly found their way into the hands of private collectors, I believe, and until steps are taken to organise a thorough exploration of the spot, much that would be in the highest degree interesting to the antiquary and the public will remain buried in oblivion. At present all that can be seen of ancient Luni may be summed up briefly thus: (1) Portions of a temple dedicated to Plantilla, wife of the Emperor Caracalla. (2) The amphitheatre, much despoiled and overgrown. (3) A circular building, 9 metres in height, and containing rows of niches. (4) A large building supposed to have been used as a granary or depôt for military stores. (5) Portions of an aqueduct. (6) Some prostrate columns, friezes, and capitals. (7) The ancient well, still furnishing the clearest and coolest water in the neighbourhood.

For some of the information herein contained I am indebted to Signor S. Cerini, whose access to various archives and manuscripts has supplied me with data, and who is the author of a pamphlet on the subject published two years ago. For the rest I have had to glean the meagre information contained in this paper as best I could; but my visit to the spot has increased my desire to know more about it, and my hope is that a day may soon come when the hidden archæological treasures of the buried Luni will be unearthed for the instruction and admiration of the public. I may add that the spot is most picturesque, and well worthy the attention of artist and antiquary alike. For myself, so long as I live here, I will do my best not to let the subject drop.

* * * * *

FROM a paper contributed by the veteran scholar, Dr. Edkins, to a recent number of the _Chinese Recorder_, it appears that about B.C. 2200 the Chinese possessed a knowledge of the art of writing, a year of 366 days with an intercalary month, the astrolabe, the zodiac, the cycle of sixty, of twelve musical reeds forming a gamut, which also constituted the basis of a denary metrology for measures of length, weight, and capacity, divination, and a feudal system.

Reviews.

_History of the Wrays of Glentworth_--1523-1852. 2 vols. By CHARLES
DALTON, F.R.G.S.

THE founder of the Wray family, _i.e._, the first member of it who brought the name into honourable notice, and who received a “grant of arms”--that necessary appendage to gentility--was Sir Christopher Wray, who “raised himself from nothing” to become Lord Chief Justice of England. This was in the middle of the sixteenth century. Since that time some of his descendants have received the “honour” of knighthood, some have had the baronetcy conferred upon them, whilst others have distinguished themselves either in the senate or the field, or in some other public capacity. Although the work before us is of a genealogical character, Mr. Dalton has endeavoured to amalgamate in it “many different subjects, woven together into history.” Scattered through these pages are numberless anecdotes--more or less associated with the Wrays or with the families allied to them by marriage. The first of these volumes was published by Messrs. Chapman & Hall as far back as 1880; the second volume, issued in 1881, was “privately printed.” The author’s reason for not making his second volume public he explains as follows: “I find there are so few of the many descendants of the Wrays who take any interest in their progenitors, that it would be labour lost to cast my work into the great public trough, where it could have no chance of competing with any three-volume novel, even though that same three-volume novel had no better claims to the notice of the reader than the skilfulness with which the author had managed to clothe impurity with a seeming garb of innocence.” “The Wrays of Glentworth” is far removed from the ordinary run of dry-as-dust genealogies, and will be found to contain much interesting matter. It may be added that the surplus stock has been bought over by Mr. H. W. Ball, of Barton-on-Humber, by whom they are now announced for sale.

_The Order of the Coif._ By A. PULLING, Serjeant-at-Law. W. Clowes
& Sons. 1884.

UNDER the above quaint but appropriate title, Serjeant Pulling has compiled a most interesting memoir of that grade in the legal profession of which he will probably prove to be one of the last survivors. The “coif” is, according to Bailey’s dictionary, “a sort of hood or cap for the head,” and serjeants-at-law (_servientes ad legem_) were called “Serjeants of the Coif, from the coif of Lawn which they formerly wore on their heads under their caps, but now (1763) upon the hinder part of their wigs.” The author remarks most justly, as an excuse for undertaking this work, that “in this country we have a history of neither the Bench or [nor] of the Bar,” and that “the order of the coif was the first phase of both.” And it is known to all that till quite a recent date it contained nearly every legal celebrity both of the Bench and the Bar. The work is largely based on Serjeant Wynne’s tract, published in 1765, entitled, “Observasions touching the Antiquity and Dignity of the Degree of Serjeant-at-Law;” and it is an expansion of an article in the _Edinburgh Review_ for October, 1878, on the same subject, in which much of the matter of the book now before us is foreshadowed. The introductory chapter and that which follows it are together a study in English constitutional history. The following chapters treat of very many subjects, which will be interesting alike in Westminster Hall and in the new Law Courts; and the seventh chapter, devoted as it is to the ancient habits and observances of the Order, their robes, their rings, and “posies,” their solemn processions, their feasts, masques, revels, &c., is a storehouse of antiquarian learning, and as such most highly to be commended. The last chapter treats of the later history of the Order down to its recent abolition--one which is on many accounts deeply to be regretted. It is always bad to abolish old landmarks unless they have come to stand in the way of progress and improvement; and this charge we never heard brought against “The Order of the Coif.” The illustrations, eight in all, are admirable, and light up a book which is never dark or dull.

_A History of the Town and Parish of Nantwich._ By JAMES HALL.
Printed for the Author. Nantwich, 1884.

THE County Palatine of Chester abounds in quaint and curious county towns, but few of them have a more interesting history than Nantwich. Some account of the town is to be found in Ormerod and in Lysons, and smaller notices of it have been published more recently in a local journal, in whose files these are now buried. Mr. J. Hall has therefore supplied a decided want, and by his researches in the Record Office and in the family papers of Messrs. Wilbraham and Tollemache, he has added largely to our knowledge of its earlier history. These results he has now placed before the world in a handsome quarto volume, the subscription list at the beginning of which is a proof that an author, unlike a prophet, may succeed in getting “honour even in his own country.” The work treats in successive chapters of the foundation of Nantwich, the history of the barony of which it formed a part, its church, hospital, grammar-school, and other ancient buildings, its early charters, and other privileges, its guilds, fairs, and bridges, its mention in the Subsidy Rolls, its visitations from battle, plague, and fire, and its share in the struggles of the Civil war. The latter part of the volume is devoted to an account of its commercial importance, its banks, its manufactories and industries, and especially that of salt, while full value is given to the contents of its parish registers, its charities, and the histories of the several families connected with the town, the Cholmondeleys, Wilbrahams, Tollemaches, Kingsleys, &c. The volume is illustrated by several views, well engraved on stone, and some woodcuts, showing the details of its street architecture. We would draw particular attention to the view of “Old Houses in High Street,” given on p. 415.

_Old Registers of the Parish of St. John Baptist, Peterborough._ By
the Rev. W. D. SWEETING, M.A. Peterborough: G. C. Caster. 1884.

THIS little _brochure,_ of some sixty octavo pages, formed the subject of a lecture delivered by Mr. Sweeting before the members of the Church Institute in March last, and has been published by request. Among the entries quoted are several of a quaint and curious character, and some which contain glimpses into the life and habits of our predecessors, thereby imparting to them an amount of interest which will probably be found wanting in the registers of the present day when they come to be examined some 300 years hence. The clergy are now supplied by authority with books, with spaces marked out and ruled for dates and names, and the insertion of anything beyond the mere fact registered seems to be in every way discouraged.

_Old Aunt Elspa’s A B C_, “imagined and adorned” by JOSEPH CRAWHALL (Field & Tuer), is a quaint book for children, printed on rough hand-made paper, and illustrated with curious woodcuts after the manner of the old chap-books. It is one of the “chepe and curious bookes” “imprynted atte ye signe of ye Leadenhalle Presse, in ye Old London Streete, in ye Health Exhibition, South Kensyngton, London towne, in ye yeare of Grace, 1884.”

_Ye Historical Sketch of ye Olde London Streete._ Edited by T. ST.
Edmund Hake. Waterlow & Sons. 1884.

UNDER the above title Mr. Hake has set forth in a neatly-printed _brochure_, embellished with eleven illustrations--or “gravinges” as they are here called--the principal features in the now well-known Old London Street in the International Health Exhibition at South Kensington. As he tells us in his introductory remarks, it would be difficult for a historian, a romance writer, or even a poet, to select a subject calculated to awaken more interest than Old London. “In secluded nooks and corners where an echo of the footstep can often be heard, may be found some monument or landmark--a temple, tombstone, or tavern--which speaks eloquently of the past. The ‘writing upon the wall’ may be worn out; the stone once smooth may be wrinkled like an old face; still such are the ‘things of fame,’ to inspire the minds of men, and to lead to reflection and research.” The illustrations embrace full-page etchings of the north and south sides of the “street,” and smaller engravings of Bishopsgate, the Rose Inn, the Three Squirrels, Isaac Walton’s house, the tower of All Hallows Steyning, &c.