2"^ S. VIII. Seft. 24. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



243 



In Herefordshire the weather on 6r about St. 

 James's day (July 25th) is said to influence the 

 hop, which is largely grown in that county, in 

 some way ; but 1 forget the distich. 



Perhaps some of your correspondents who are 

 able may be willing to record more of such verses 

 (of which there are many) as relate to the periods, 

 if not to the influence, of saints' days, before they 

 be irrecoverably lost. A. F. 



Custom at Farriborough. — I extract the fol- 

 lowing from the Manchester Courier, July 23 : — 



" The stranger who chances to attend divine service in 

 Farnborough parish church on the Sunday next after 

 the Feast of St. Peter, has his attention arrested by the 

 floor of the porch being strewed with reeds. By an ab- 

 stract of the will of George Dalton, gent., of Farnborough, 

 dated December 3rd, 1556, set forth on a mural tablet in 

 the interior of the church, he learns that this gentleman 

 settled a perpetual annuity of 13s. Ad. chargeable upon 

 his lands at Tuppendence — 10s. to the preacher of a ser- 

 mon on the Sunday next after the Feast of St. Peter, and 

 3s. 4</. to the poor. Local traditional lore affirms that 

 Mr. Dalton was saved from drowning by reeds, and that 

 the annual sermon and odd manner of decorating the 

 porch are commemorative of the event. Keed-day, or 

 flag-day, as it is indifierently called by the inhabitants 

 of the village, recurred on Sunday last, July 3rd, and 

 was duly honoured after the customary mode, which has 

 obtained for nearly 300 years." — Maidstone Gazette. 



LiBTA. 



English and Foreign Custom of eating Goose. 

 — Why do the English eat goose on St. Michael's 

 Day, and other Teutonic nations on St. Martin's 

 Day ? And why is Luther (who was born on St. 

 Martin's Eve) often represented with a goose ? 



Fba. Mewburn. 



KING JOHN AND THE JEWS IN CANTERBURY. 



King John, whose reputation, neither as a 

 monarch nor a man, had ever a " sweet savour " 

 in history, possessed nevertheless a certain sort of 

 popularity among the lower classes of his subjects. 

 At all events, he holds in the popular songs and 

 legends a rather more favourable position than he 

 does in any other records. 



No man was fonder of jests and revelry : con- 

 tinually wandering up and down his dominions 

 during the whole of his disgraceful reign, it is 

 possible that he may have become popular among 

 a class whose humour was not the most refined, 

 and whose appreciation of character, in a king at 

 least, was not the most correct. 



In him posterity has recognised both a bad man 

 and a bad king; but the commonalty, in olden 

 times at least, was not fastidious : and as certain 

 emperors of Rome once sought to obtain popu- 

 larity from the " plebs," by exhibiting themselves 

 as gladiators, so John might not always have 

 avoided making mirth and amusement for the 

 people, when he sought recreation for himself, in 

 practical jokes and in low buSbonery. 



This monarch was occasionally at Canterbury. 



From this city he proceeded to Dover on his dis- 

 graceful mission to resign the crown of England to 

 Pandulf, the Pope's Legate. According to the 

 itinerary of his journeys, he appears to have pro- 

 ceeded in a dilatory and tortuous manner, on his 

 royal road to degradation. 



From Canterbury he departed on the 6th of 

 May, 1213, to Ewell, a hamlet situated about three 

 miles from Dover. Here he remained a short 

 time, and on the seventh day he went to Dover, 

 returning to Ewell the same evening. As the 

 Knights Templars had a house in this neighbour- 

 hood, he probably took up his quarters with them, 

 abiding here twelve days : thence he went to 

 Wingham, about ten miles across- the country, in 

 a somewhat retrograde direction ; then back again 

 to Dover ; thence to Wingham again, and then, 

 avoiding Canterbury, his degradation being con- 

 summated, he slunk away round to Chilham Castle. 

 The next day he went to Ospringe, thence to 

 Rochester, then back again to Chilham, and thence 

 to Battle. These peregrinations occupied about 

 thirty-nine days. The delay at Ewell after his 

 submission to the Pope was no doubt occasioned 

 by his waiting for his sceptre, which Pandulf is 

 said to have retained for five days. 



King John addressed many special communi- 

 cations to his "good city of Canterbury," and 

 honoured it by levying sundry exactions on its 

 inhabitants. 



A.D. 1205, he gives a mill at Canterbury " to 

 his beloved clerk, Master Peter de Inglesham." 



A.D. 1212, he demands of the Prajpositi and 

 good men of Canterbury, if they will love him, 

 eighty men armed, of the best men of Canterbury, 

 to be sent to him at Westminster. 



A.D. 1214, he writes from Rochelle, demand- 

 ing a special contribution from Canterbury on 

 account of the Pope's interdict having been re- 

 laxed. 



A.D. 1215, he demands a supply of pike heads*, 

 as many as possible, to be sent without delay to 

 Rochester ; and that all the smiths of the city be 

 taken off all other work whatever, and work night 

 and day, to expedite this demand. 



The same year he demands a quantity of wheels^ 

 or wheeled carriages for his use. - 



He takes away certain houses belonging to the 

 Jews at Canterbury, and among others he presents 

 to William de Waren, Earl of Surry, " the house 

 belonging to Benedict, the little Jew, and to Isaac, 

 his brother of Canterbury, in Jewry, London." 



John, it is well known, considered the Jews of 

 England as his special property, and although he 

 at times protected them against the encroachments 

 of others, and even naively observed in reference 

 to this people, in one of his decrees to the city of 

 London, " that if it were a dog, and he had taken 

 him under his protection, he would defend him ; " 



[* Ficoisios, i. e. pickaxes ? — Ed. ] 



