86 



NOTES AKD QUERIES. 



[2«* S. X. Aug. 4. '60, 



guedo," for in the volumes I possess there are 

 occasional spots of grease, arising, no doubt, from 

 handling the midnight lamp of fat. It is very 

 interesting also to note how, either at the begin- 

 ning or the* end of each work, he solicits the 

 prayers of the reader, in these or similar words — 

 " orent legentes pro Joanne de Indagine." 



I fear that most of these works have perished 

 with the wreck of the Carthusian monasteries in 

 Germany, where they were principally preserved. 

 I have thought it desirable to record in " N. & 

 Q." the fact of so prodigious an exercise of the 

 human intellect, and conclude with asking if any 

 correspondent can furnish us with an example of 

 a greater or so great an instance of brain labour. 

 Some of the Fathers, as well as St. Thomas 

 Aquinas, have written most voluminously, but 

 not equally with John Hagen, if the average of 

 his works was of the calibre I have supposed. 

 Varro is said to have written 500 volumes ; but 

 probably they were short treatises ; he moreover 

 lived beyond the age of 90, whereas John Hagen 

 died at 60. John Williams. 



Arno'a Court. 



THE BARONETAGE OF JAMES I. AND THE 

 FEUDAL BARONET. 



In the Rev. Sloane Evans's British Heraldry, a 

 very useful work on the subject, there are one or 

 two curious errors • and as one of them is main- 

 tained by the " Order " in reference to which it 

 occurs, a few remarks may tend to draw forth a 

 more satisfactory explanation than I can offer. 



Under the heading " Laws and Scale of Prece- 

 dence," the above author describes as " Nobiles 

 Majores," "Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts, 

 Barons, and Baronets" and claims for the last the 

 style of "Honourable;" but this appears to me 

 to be only a style corresponding with " Worship- 

 ful" as applied to gentlemen of the olden time. If 

 such designations were to be taken in their literal 

 acceptation, we should have, with equal truth and 

 propriety, officers holding royal commissions in- 

 sisting on their right to be styled " Trusty and 

 well beloved," as " the trusty and well beloved 

 Lieut. Z." &c. 



The reverend author remarks that it is " ex- 

 ceedingly strange " that the baronets do not as- 

 sume that title ; "and he farther approves of their 

 assumption of a coronet with four pearls. 



Now it strikes me that these ideas arise from a 

 misapprehension of the true position of a baronet, 

 and in consequence of attributing to the present 

 institution, or order of baronet, the dignity which 

 appertained to the lesser barons, sometimes called 

 '■''Baronets," who were peers by ''^vmt of summons," 

 and not hy feudal tenure, as were the greater barons, 

 who were invariably styled simply ^''Barons." 



Ii^ the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth cen* 



turies the distinction was frequently made be- 

 tween the great barons hy feudal tenure and those 

 by "w7'it of summons," who, to mark their inferior 

 rank, were often styled, as I have said, " Baro- 

 nets." These distinctions were recently accu- 

 rately stated by. Mr. Hemming before the House 

 of Lords. (Berkeley Peerage.) 



It may be that, without sufficient consideration, 

 the honours of the feudal lesser barons, or baronets, 

 have been claimed for the order of James J.'s 

 creation, by accepting a coincidence of names for 

 the actual facts of the case. It is seemingly falla- 

 cious to augur : — L Baronets, in the time of the 

 Edwards, wore coronets and had the style of 

 peers. 2. We are baronets. 3. We are entitled 

 to the style of peers, and to wear coronets. 



The name Is the same, but the origin, — the con- 

 dition, position, and in short everything but the 

 name and hereditary privilege, — was entirely, as 

 every one knows, distinct. There is indeed as 

 much difference as between a Roman Consul in 

 ancient Britain and a British Consul in modern 

 Rome. 



I have made these observations, not to criticise 

 the useful work from which I have quoted, but to 

 ventilate an obscure subject. Spalatro. 



P.S. — There are other minor mistakes that I 

 may hereafter point out. 



HONEST TOM MARTIN'S HOUSE. 



Within the last few months the house at Pal- 

 grave, Suffolk, in which " honest Tom Martin " 

 indulged his antiquarian and jovial propensities 

 from 1723 to his death in 1771, has been pulled 

 down. It was a large double-roofed house, with 

 central entrance and thirteen windows in front, 

 looking towards the village church, upon a tongue 

 of greensward, and its northern end adjoining the 

 road to Botesdale and Bury St. Edmund's. If 

 it was not built by Martin, to him at least may 

 be attributed the inserting, in the central upper 

 front window, of the arras of Archbishop San- . 

 croft, a position which they retained as long as 

 the house stood. In 1774 it became the abode of 

 the Rev. Rochemont Barbauid and his more cele- 

 brated wife. He was minister of the Presby- 

 terian congregation at Palgrave, which met in a 

 plain, old, domestic-looking building long since 

 removed, though its retired site remains enclosed 

 as a burial-ground. Palgrave school attained con- 

 siderable eminence, and the long casemented win- 

 dow of the school-room, in the south wing at the 

 back of the house, showed for many a year the 

 diamond-cut names and scribblings of aspiring or 

 idle pupils. Forty years ago there were villagers 

 who remembered and delighted to talk of the 

 " great school," and the exploits of the young 

 noblemen who figured there. In a carpenter's 



