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BEAVER HATS—PISAN

Allow me to say a few words in reply to your correspondent "GASTROS." His quotation from Fairholt (Costume in England), who cites Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses as the earliest authority for the use of beaver hats in England, is not a satisfactory reply to my query; inasmuch as I am aware that beaver hats were occasionally worn by great people in this country some centuries before Stubbes was born. For example, Henry III. possessed "unum capellum de Bevre cum apparatu auri et lapidibus preciosis;" as appears from the "Wardrobe Account," of the 55th year of his reign. I have, therefore, still to ask for the earliest instance of the use of hats or caps of this material in England; such hats, as well as gloves, are mentioned in several English inventories made between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Is there any example earlier than the time of Henry III.?

"GASTROS" has also obligingly replied to my query as to "the meaning of the term Pisan, used in old records for some part of defensive armour," but he seems to have forgotten that I expressly stated that term had no relation to "the fabrics of Pisa;" at least such is my belief. With regard to the inventory of the arms and armour of Louis le Hutin, taken in 1316, printed in Meyrick's Ancient Armour, to which he kindly refers me, it may be observed that the said inventory is so perversely translated in the first edition of that work (just now I have no means of consulting the second), as to be all but useless; indeed it might be termed one of the most extraordinary literary performances of modern times, as the following instance may suffice to show. One of the items of the inventory is, "une cote gamboisée à arbroissiaus d'or broudées à chardonereus;" and it is thus rendered into English, "a gamboised coat with a rough surface (like a thicket;—note) of gold embroidered on the nap of the cloth!" The real signification is "a gamboised coat embroidered in gold, with little bushes (or trees), with gold-finches [on them]." But I am rather wandering from my point: I never could ascertain on what authority Sir Samuel Meyrick asserted that "jazeran armour," as he calls it, was formed of "overlapping plates." The French word jazeran was derived from the Italian ghiazarino, or ghiazzerino, which signified "a gorget of mail," or what some of our antiquaries have termed "a standard of mail;" in France this word always preserved its relation to mail, and in process of time came to be applied to so lowly an object as a flagon-chain: see Cotgrave's Fr. Dict. ed. 1673. Roquefort, indeed, says a "jaserans" was a cuirass, but to my apprehension the passage which he quotes from the Roman d'Alexandre—

 
"Es haubers, jazerans, et ès elmes gemez"—
 

seems to prove that, in that instance at least, a gorget is meant. At any rate, the translation of the passage in the inventory to which "GASTROS" refers should be, "three Pisan collerets of steel mail," not that given by Meyrick. Here we have clearly a fabric of Pisa: whereas the pisan, of which I desire to know the meaning, invariable occurs as an independent term, e.g. "item, unum pisanum," or "unum par pisanorum." Of course I have my own conjecture on the subject, but should be glad to hear other opinions; so I again put the question to your correspondents. In conclusion I would observe to "GASTROS" that they must be very late MSS. indeed in which such a contraction as pisan for partisan can be found. If you have room, and think it worth while, I will from time to time send you some corrections of the more flagrant errors of Meyrick.

T. HUDSON TURNER.

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

Norman Pedigrees. In reference to your correspondent "B.'s" inquiries, he will find much information in the Publications de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie. Under their auspices, M. Estancelin published in 1828 a full history of the Earls of Eu. I am not aware of any full collection of pedigrees of the companions of William the Conqueror: the names of several of the lands from which they took their designations yet remain.

W. DURRANT COOPER.

Norman Pedigrees.—In answer to "B.'s" query (No. 14. p. 214.), an excellent Gazetteer was published in Paris, 1831, entitled Dictionnaire Complet Géographique, Statistique, et Commercial de la France et de ses Colonies; par M. Briand-de-Verzé, pp. 856. Many of the names of the Conqueror's Norman companions will be found in that work; as, for instance, Geoffrey de "Mandeville, village. Calvados arrondissement, 31½ O.N.O. de Bayeaux," &c.

Norman de Beauchamp: three Beauchamps are mentioned; that 51. from Avranches will be the one in question.

C.I.R.

Oxford, Feb. 19. 1850.

Norman Pedigrees.—Your correspondent "B." (No. 14. p. 214.) would probably find part of the information he seeks in Domesday Book, seu Censualis Willelmi Primi Regis Angliæ. But query? Is "B." right in supposing the prefix "De" to be French? Does it not rather originate in the Latin?

"Domesday" is written in Latin throughout; and the "de," denoting the place, is there occasionally followed by what seems to be the Latin ablative case. I copy an example:—

"Canonici de Hansone ten. l. hida de Sansone," (i.e. loc. in co. Stafford.)

Then of the person it is said—

"Sanson ten. de rege, &c.... iii. hid. træ in Hargedone," &c.

J.S.

Translation of Ælian.—In answer to the query of "G.M." in No. 15. p. 232., I beg to state that in Lowndes's Manual, vol. i. p. 13., is the following notice under the head of "Ælianus Claudius:"—

"Various Histories translated by T. Stanley, London, 1665, 8vo. 5s. This translation is by the son of the learned editor of Æschylus, and was reprinted 1670. 1677."

C.I.R.

Ave Trici and Gheeze Ysenoudi.—I regret that I cannot give "H.L.B." any further information about these ladies than the colophon I transcribed affords. To me, however, it is quite clear that they were sisters of some convent in Flanders or Holland; the name of their spiritual father, Nicolas Wyt, and the names of the ladies, clearly indicate this.

S.W.S.

Daysman (No. 12. p. 188.)– It seems to me that a preferable etymology may be found to that given by Nares and Jacob. The arbiter or judge might formerly have occupied a dais or lit de justice, or he might have been selected from those entitled to sit on the raised parts of the courts of law, i.e. jurisconsulti, or barristers as we call them. I have heard another etymology, which however I do not favour, that the arbiter, chosen from men of the same rank as the disputants, should be paid for loss of his day's work.

GEORGE OLIVER.

Perhaps the following may be of some use in clearing up this point. In the Graphic Illustrator, a literary and antiquarian miscellany edited by E.W. Brayley, London, 1834, at p. 14, towards the end of an article on the Tudor Style of Architecture, signed T.M. is the following:—

"This room (talking of the great halls in old manor-houses) was in every manor-house a necessary appendage for holding 'the court,' the services belonging to which are equally denominated 'the homage,' with those of the king's palace. The dais, or raised part of the upper end of the hall, was so called, from the administration of justice. A dais-man is still a popular term for an arbitrator in the North, and Domesday-Book (with the name of which I suppose every one to be familiar) is known to be a list of manor-houses."

C.D. LAMONT.

Greenock.

[Our correspondents will probably find some confirmation of their ingenious suggestion in the following passage from The Vision of Piers Ploughman:—

 
"And at the day of dome
At the heighe deys sitte."
 

Ll. 4898-9. ed. Wright.]

Saveguard.—"BURIENSIS" (No. 13. p. 202.) is informed that a saveguard was an article of dress worn by women, some fifty or sixty years ago, over the skirts of their gowns when riding on horseback, chiefly when they sat on pillions, on a double horse, as it was called.

It was a sort of outside petticoat, usually made of serge, linsey-wolsey, or some other strong material: and its use was to guard the gown from injury by the dirt of the (then very dirty) roads. It was succeeded by the well-known riding-habit; though I have seen it used on a side-siddle by a rider who did not possess the more modern dress.

P.H.F.

Amongst the bequests to the Clothworkers' Company of London is one by Barbara Burnell, by will dated 27th June, 1630, wherein she directs the company to bestow 4l. 6s. yearly in woollen cloth to make six waistcoats and six safeguards for six poor women.¹⁷

Also we find that John Skepworth, by will dated 17th Oct. 1678, gave two closes of land to the parish of Louth, to the intent that the churchwardens and overseers of the poor there should apply the rents and profits of the same in providing so much coarse woollen cloth as would make ten suits yearly to be given to ten poor people of Louth, the men to have coats and breeches, and the women to have waistcoats and safeguards.¹⁸

If "BURIENSIS" has a friend belonging to the Clothworkers' Company, it is probable that he will acquire much information on this subject from their old records.

H. EDWARDS.

Derivation of "Calamity" (No. 14. p. 215.)—"Calamity" is from the Latin calamitas, from calamus a straw or stalk of corn, signifying, 1st, the agricultural misfortune of the corn being beaten down or laid by a storm; and thence, any other trouble or disaster:—

"Ipsa egreditur nostri fundi calamitas."

Ter. Eun. i. 1.

Upon which the commentator in the Delph. ed. has this note:—

"Calamitas est grando et tempestas, quæ calamos segetum prosternit et conterit. Unde Cicero Verrem vocat 'calamitosam tempestatem.'"

Ainsworth, quoting the above passage from Terence, adds:—

"Ubi Donatus. Proprie calamitatem rustici vocant quod comminuat calamum; h.e. culmen et segetem."

The etymology of its synonym, "disaster," is more direct—δυσ αστηρ, a star of evil influence, or, as we say, "born under an ill planet."

Φιλολογοσ.

Forcellini, s.v. Calamitas, says:—

"Proprie significat imminutionem clademque calamorum segetis, quæ grandine vel impetuoso aliquo turbine aut alia quapiam de causa fit."

He then quotes Servius, Ad Georg, i. 151:—

"Robigo genus est vitii, quo culmi pereunt, quod a rusticanis calamitas dicitur."

Then follows the note of Donatus on Ter. Eun. i. 1. 34.

It appears to me, if "calamitas" were derived from calamus, it would mean something very different from what it does.

Another suggestion is, that the first syllable is the same as the root of cad-o, to fall; l and d, everybody knows, are easily interchangeable: as Odysseus, Ulixes: δακρυον, lacrima, tear, &c. &c. If so, calamitas is a corrupted form of cadamitas. Mar. Victorinus, De Orthogr. p. 2456., says:—

"Gueius Pompeius Magnus et scribebat et dicebat Kadamitatem pro Kalamitatem."—(Quoted from Bothe's Poetæ," Scenici Latinorum, vol. v. p. 21.)

But how is the -amitas to be explained? I may as well add, that Döderlein, with his usual felicity, derives it from κολουω.

EDWARD S. JACKSON.

I beg to refer MR. F.S. MARTIN (No. 14. p. 215.), for the derivation of "Calamity," to the Etymologicon Linguæ Latinæ of Gerard Vossius, or to the Totius Latinitatis Lexicon of Facciolatus and Forcellinus. He will there find that the word calamitas was first used with reference to the storms which destroyed the stalks (calami) of corn, and afterwards came to signify metaphorically, any severe misfortune. The terrific hail-storm of the summer of 1843, which destroyed the crops of corn through several of the eastern and midland counties of this kingdom, was a calamity in the original sense of the word.

"W.P.P." has also kindly replied to this query by furnishing a part of the Article on Calamitas in Vossius; and "J.F.M." adds, Calamitas means—

"The spindling of the corn, which with us is rare, but in hotter countries common: insomuch as the word calamitas was first derived from calamus, when the corn could not get out of the stalk."—Bacon, Nat. Hist. sect. 669.

Derivation of "Zero" (No. 14. p. 215.).—Zero Ital.; Fr. un chiffre, un rien, a cipher in arithmetic, a nought; whence the proverb avere nel zero, mépriser souverainement, to value at nothing, to have a sovereign contempt for. I do not know what the etymology of the word may be; but the application is obvious to that point in the scale of the thermometer below the numbered degrees to which, in ordinary temperatures, the mercury does not sink.

Φιλολογοσ.

Deanery of Gloucester, Feb. 7. 1850.

"Zero" (No. 14. p. 215.)—Zero, as is well known, is an Italian word signifying the arithmetical figure of nought (0). It has been conjectured that it is derived from the transposition from the Hebrew word ezor, a girdle, the zero assuming that form. (See Furetière, vol. iii.) Prof. le Moine, of Leyden (quoted by Ménage), claims for it also an Eastern origin, and thinks we have received it from the Arabians, together with their method of reckoning ciphers. He suggests that it may be a corruption from the Hebrew [Hebrew: rphs], safara, to number.

Complutensian Polyglot.—I cannot pretend to reply to "MR. JEBB'S" inquiry under this head in No. 12. p. 213.; but perhaps it may assist him in his researches, should he not have seen the pamphlet, to refer to Bishop Smallridge's "Enquiry into the Authority of the Primitive Complutensian Edition of the New Testament, as principally founded on the most ancient Vatican MS., together with some research after that MS. In order to decide the dispute about 1 John v. 7. In a letter to Dr. Bentley. 8vo. London, 1722."

J.M.

Oxford, Feb. 5.

Sir William Rider.—In reply to the queries of "H.F.," No. 12. p. 186., respecting Sir William Rider, I beg to say that among the many MS. notes which I have collected relating to the Rider family, &c., I find the following from the Visitation of Surry, 1623, and from a MS. book of Pedigrees of Peers in the Herald's College, with additions.

"Thomas Rider married a daughter of – Poole of Stafforde, by whom he had Sir William Rider, born at Muchalstone, co. Stafforde, Sheriff of London, 1591, Citizen and Haberdasher, Lord Mayor, 1600. Will dated 1 Nov., and proved 9 Nov. 1610, 8 Jas. I. (94 Wood); buried at Low Layton, Essex, &c. Sir William married Elizabeth, da. of R. Stone, of Helme, co. Norfolk; by whom he had, besides other children and descendants, Mary daughter and coheiress, who married Sir Thomas Lake, of Canons, Middlesex, from whose issue descended Viscount Lake."

S.S.

Pokership (No. 12. p. 185., and No. 14. p. 218.).—It is to be regretted that no information has been supplied respecting the meaning of this remarkable word, either from local sources or from the surveys of crown lands in the Exchequer or Land Revenue offices. In one or the other of these quarters we should surely find something which would dispense with further conjecture. In the meantime the following facts, obtained from records easily accessible, will probably be sufficient to dispose of the explanations hitherto suggested, and to show that the poker of Bringwood forest was neither a parker nor a purser.