2°* S. X. Aug. 18. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



131 



book (an official registry) entitled Description 

 List previous to 1807. The age, in this instance, 

 is not corroborated by a birth certificate, but is 

 founded on an oath taken before a magistrate, 

 and would, consequently, be accepted in our day 

 by any Insurance Office. The date of death is an 

 after entry. May not John Effingham, then, have 

 unlisted at some such age — sixty-one? And is 

 there anything more remarkable in a soldier being 

 a corporal at seventy-seven, than a sergeant-major 

 at eighty- three ? Admit these, and the rest is 

 only another way of saying that John Effingham 

 was an extraordinarily hearty and courageous old 

 man. M. S. R. 



FKATRES DE SACCO. 

 (2"« S. X. 68.) 



This order was an off-shoot from the Augus- 

 tinians. Its origin, however, is involved in ob- 

 scurity. There seems to be no trace of it earlier 

 than the beginning of the thirteenth century, at 

 which period we read of a house of the Order 

 established at Saragossa, under Pope Innocent 

 III., who died in 1216. Another house existed 

 at Valenciennes before the year 1251, and in con- 

 sequence of the friars having the direction of the 

 Beguines in that town, they were called Freres 

 Beguins. Queen Blanche, mother of St. Louis, 

 induced her son to found several houses in France 

 — at Paris, Poitiers, Caen, and other places. 



They were variously designated, — Fratres de 

 Poenitentia Jesu Christi, Fratres de Sacco, Sacci, 

 Saccini, Sacciti, Saccati. In French they were 

 called Freres Sachets ; nuns of the Order were 

 called Soeurs Sachettes ; and down to a late period 

 there was a street still called Rue des Sachettes, 

 in the vicinity of St. Andre des Arts. {Hist, de 

 TEglise Gallicane, 1. 34. an. 1272.) The name 

 was derived from the form of their coarse habit, 

 which resembled a sack, which indeed typified 

 their great poverty and the austerity of their 

 rule. They abstained perpetually from^wine and 

 flesh meat. 



They were introduced into England in the year 

 1257, and Matthew Paris thus notices the fact : — 



" Eodem tempore novus Ordo apparuit Londini ; de 

 quibus fratribus ignotis et non praevisis, qui quia saccis 

 incedebant induti, Fratres Saccati vocabantur." — Hist. 

 p. 916., ed. Tigur. 1589. 



They were suppressed by the General Council 

 of Lyons, which was held in 1274 ; and therefore 

 the date 1307, quoted by your correspondent from 

 Tanner, is, as he suspects, inaccurate. The Order 

 was not suppressed in consequence of any dis- 

 orders or scandals, for it must have been in its 

 first fervour ; but because the Council had come 

 to the determination of abolishing all mendicant 

 Orders, with the exception of four ; thus adhering 

 partially to the canon of the 4th Council of Late- 



ran, an. 1215, which forbade the establishment of 

 any new religious Orders whatever, " in order 

 that confusion in the Church might be avoided." 

 According to Walsingham the Council — 



" Aliquos status de ordinibus mendicantium approbavit 

 .... aliquos reprobavit, ut Saccinos, qui intituJantur de 

 Poenitentia, sive de Valleviridi." 



Is there any record of any other houses in Eng- 

 land, besides those of London and Lynn ? There 

 could not have been many, for there was an in- 

 terval of only seventeen years between their in- 

 troduction and suppression. John Williams. 



Arno's Court. 



P.S. There is no mention of these friars in the 

 original edition of Dugdale's Monasticon. In Ste- 

 vens, however, I find two houses of the Order 

 mentioned, London and Oxford. The learned 

 editors of the latest edition have, moreover, 

 brought to light seven others, — Cambridge, Lei- 

 cester, Lincoln, Lynn, Norwich, Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne, and Worcester. They commit the mistake, 

 however, of stating that the Council of Lyons was 

 held in the year 1307 ; deceived, I presume, by 

 the authority of Wood (Hist, aiul Ant. of Oxford), 

 Tanner and Stevens quoting Wood, who say the 

 Order was suppressed in England in the year 

 1307. The way to reconcile the discrepancy is to 

 suppose that the decree of the Council, an. 1274, 

 being a matter of discipline only, was not canoni- 

 cally received, published, and acted upon in this 

 country until the year 1307. 



By a deed dated at Lynn the Sunday next 

 before the Feast of All Saints, 1307, brother 

 Roger de Flegg, Vicar-general of the Order of 

 Friars of the Penitence of Jesus Christ in Eng- 

 land, and Prior of the Friars of the same order 

 dwelling in Lynn, in the name of himself and the 

 other friars of Ihs order dwelling in England, 

 granted, acquitted, and quit claimed to the master 

 and scholars of the house of S. Peter in Cam- 

 bridge and their successors all the right and claim 

 which he and the said friars had in all their place 

 with all its buildings in the town of Cambridge, 

 in the parish of S. Peter without Trumpetongates. 

 I have a copy of this deed, and have forwarded 

 same (with copies of other documents relating to 

 the house of the order in Cambridge) to my 

 friend Mr. A. H. Swatman. C. H. Cooper. 



Cambridge. 



THE MAGNETIC DECLINATION. 



(2"* S. X. 62.) 



Clammild is wrong, but not more so than many 

 — not all — " of the vanes in the country." It will 

 require rather a long " Note " to set Clammild 

 right. If you will bear with me, I will try. The 

 vanes are never likely to get right. 



