Z52 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2«d s. N" 96,, Oct. 31. '57. 



his own works printed by him. This excellent printer 

 died in 1527, lamented by all, but by none more than 

 Erasmus, who wrote his epitaph in Greek and Latin.] 



Heralds' Visitations. — In what year was the 

 last Visitation of Lancashire, and where is the re- 

 cord of the visitor's labours ? Prestoniensis. 

 [Pkestoniensis is informed that the last Visitation 

 of Lancashire was made by Dugdale in 16G4, and that 

 the original manuscript is deposited at the Heralds' Col- 

 lege (MS. C. 37.) He will find a list of the Visitations 

 made in that county, and other valuable matter, in Sims's 

 Manual for the Genealogist, whilst the Index to the 

 Heralds' Visitations, by the same author, will furnish him 

 with a ready reference to the pedigrees and arms of the 

 principal families mentioned therein.] 



Church Livings Commissions. — I have found in 

 an old collection of papers an account of the value 

 of all the Rectories and Vicarages within the Rape 

 of Lewes and diocese of Chichester. It is stated to 

 have been taken upon the oaths of several persons 

 in the year 1650, by virtue of a Commission out of 

 the High Court of Chancery, I shall be obliged 

 to any correspondent who can inform me whether 

 these Commissions were general at that time, and 

 for any other information that can be given on the 

 subject. R. W. B. 



[Our correspondent's papers appear to belong to the 

 returns made by tl« Sequestrators of Church Livings, 

 appointed by the Ordinance of 1644, cap. 40, entitled 

 "Rules for the better Execution of the Ordinances for Se- 

 questration of Delinquents' and Papists' Estates ; " and 

 again, anno 1649, cap. 68, " For the better ordering and 

 managing the Estates of Papists and Delinquents, to con- 

 tinue for two years from Jan. 23, 1649." The Commis- 

 sions were general throughout England and Wales. See 

 ' Scobell's Acts arid Ordinances, and Walker's Sufferings 

 oftfie Clergy, Part L pp. 102. 168.] 



Chattertoiis Sister. — In Chatterton's letters he 

 speaks of his sister, afterwards Mrs. Newton, with- 

 out mentioning her Christian name. His biogra- 

 phers do not give it, — at least I have not been 

 able to find it where I have looked. What was 

 it? Hubert Bower. 



[Among the inscriptions in the churchyard of St. 

 Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, to the memory of the Chatterton 

 family is the following : " Mary Newton, widow of Thomas 

 Newton, [son-in-law of Thomas Chatterton, schoolmas- 

 ter] who died 23rd February, 1804, aged fifty-three 

 years." See Gent. Mag., Sept. 1851, p. 226.] 



Chatterton s Yellow Roll. — Can you give me 

 any information concerning the " Yellow Roll," a 

 fac-simile of which is given in the Life and Works 

 of Chatterton published by Grant at Cambridge. 

 I have searched through the work without finding 

 any explanation of it, excepting that it was given 

 to Mr. Catcott. A Young Chattertonian. 



[In Kippis's Biographia Britannica, iv. 600., it is stated 

 that the Yellow Roll contained an account of coinage in 

 England, and that it was lent by Mr. Barrett to a friend 

 and ia lost.] 



AMBIGUOUS PROPER KAMES IN PROPHECIES. 



(2°^ S. iv. 201. 277.) 



The two additional examples supplied by your 

 correspondents serve to confirm the idea that the 

 stories of this class are not authentic, but have 

 been invented, or at least embellished and im- 

 proved, after the event. 



The first relates that the Emperor Zeno had 

 received a prediction that in a certain month of 

 July he would be in Constantinople ; but at that 

 time, being in Syria, and hearing of the defeat of 

 his partisans, he took refuge in a castle upon a 

 hill, which was called by the neighbours Con- 

 stantinople. Upon learning this fact, he ex- 

 claimed that man was the sport of €rod ; that he 

 had expected to reach his capital, but found him- 

 self, deprived of everything and a fugitive, in a 

 petty fortress called by the same name. (Suldas 

 in V. Ztjvoiv : in the gloss, v. i^riKde, he Is even 

 said to have died In this castle.) Suldas is the 

 only authority cited for this story ; and his dic- 

 tionary is a compilation of the tenth or eleventh 

 century. It is therefore about five centuries pos- 

 terior to Zeno, who lived In the fifth century. 



The other is that of Gerbert, who became pope 

 under the title of Sylvester the Second, and died 

 on the 12th of May, 1003, in the fifth year of his 

 papacy. (See Hock's Gerbert, WIen, 1837, p. 142.) 

 More than a century after his death (about 1 120), 

 William of Malmsbury wrote a long fabulous le- 

 gend, full of incredible marvels, and ending with 

 the following story : 



" Gerbert (who was represented as a great magician) 

 took advantage of a certain astrological combination, 

 when all the planets were at the entrance of their houses, 

 to cast a head, which answered his questions with no and 

 yes, and predicted the future. Having enquired of this 

 head if he should die before he sang a mass in Jerusalem, 

 he received an answer in the negative. By this am- 

 biguous response he was deceived ; so that he postponed 

 repentance in the hope of long life. He did not perceive 

 that there is at Rome a church called Jerusalem, at 

 which the pope reads mass on three Sundays. While he 

 was performing this service, he was seized with an illness, 

 and observed that his hour was come ; he called the car- 

 dinals and the rest of the clergy together, confessed his 

 sins, did penance, and ordered that his corpse should be 

 hacked to pieces, in order that his limbs, with which he 

 had sworn allegiance to the devil, might be destroyed; 

 he further directed that his remains should be put on 

 a car drawn by two oxen, and buried in the place 

 where they should stop. This place proved to be the 

 entrance to the church of the Lateran." — Gesta Eeg. 

 Angl, lib. ii. § 172., ed. Hardy. 



Mr. Hardy, in the preface to his edition of 

 William of Malmsbury, p. xv., has some remarks 

 upon the legends of this chronicler. The narra- 

 tive in question was repeated by Albericus, Ger- 

 vasius of Tilbury, and other legendary writers, 

 and became a received story in mediseval lite- 



