3Y2 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°a S. NO 97., Nov. 7. '57. 



his account of Canterbury cathedral, he evidently 

 alludes, in the description of the fabric as it stood 

 before the fire, to what we now call the " clere- 

 story gallery." He speaks of " obscurse fenestras " 

 above the arches ; but again, above these, the 

 " Via quae Triforium appellata est, et fenestr£E su- 

 periores." In other words, he describes a " blind 

 »tory," and above is the " clerestory." 



In the description of the cathedral, as rebuilt 

 after the great fire, he says, " the architect inter- 

 mingled the lower triforium from the great tower 

 to the aforesaid pillar with many marble columns, 

 over which he adjusted another triforium of other 

 materials, and also the upper windows." In other 

 words, we have two triforia. What was the dif- 

 ference in construction between the two fabrics ? 

 I presunie, judging from other early Norman ex- 

 amples, that the " obscures fenestrse" afforded no 

 " via," but that in the new building (the same as 

 now standing) there was a perfect passage in the 

 lower as well as the upper triforium. So far as to 

 the application of the word : beyond this is con- 

 jecture. 



The suggestion which I then threw out (the 

 five years which have elapsed, I admit, have some- 

 what diminished my affection for it) was that the 

 tri was but the scribe's contraction for tiirri, and 

 ihn,t forium, as has been shown by Mr. Phillott, 

 might well mean a passage : moreover, that Ger- 

 vase particularly mentions that it was a passage, 

 and that where there was no passage, he implies 

 there was no triforium, I laid stress upon his 

 speaking of " the triforium from the great tower 

 as far as a certain pillar," — that, in conclusion, all 

 triforia lead from the different staircases to the 

 tower, and nowhere else (or certainly all clere- 

 story passages do, which I consider, according to 

 Gervase, to be the triforia par excellence) 5 and 

 that in the case of central towers, with aisles and 

 transepts, as in nearly all our cathedrals, there is 

 no other way to the tower, but along the tower 

 passage, or triforium. 



I will not trouble you with the uses to which 

 both upper and lower triforia have been at dif- 

 ferent times applied, as I am afraid they throw no 

 light upon the origin of the word. At the same 

 time I think it a subject well worthy of investi- 

 gation; and perhaps, if you insert this, some of 

 your numerous correspondents may be able to 

 afford information as to their employment, and if 

 any are used for practical purposes at the present 

 day. James Fabksb. 



Oxford. 



ST. PETER AS A TROJAN HERO. 



(2°" S.iv. 249.316.) 



Gibbon, in his sly and adventurous fifteenth 

 chapter, misrepresented Pere Hardouin's theory 



in stating that he supposed St. Peter to be the 

 allegorical hero of the JEneid. The great histo- 

 rian flippantly adopted a flying report among 

 "the learned" as he found it, without conde- 

 scending to investigate the fact by consulting the 

 original. 



Hardouin's theory is that the JEneid was com- 

 posed by an impious set of scribblers — impia 

 cohors — some time in the thirteenth century, 

 under tlic superintendence of a certain ogre 

 whom he calls Scverus Archontius ; and not only 

 the 2Eneid, but all the Classics, excepting the 

 Georgics, Pliny the Elder, Cicero (whom he sub- 

 sequently discarded), and the Satires and Epistles 

 of Horace, — poets, philosophers, historians, Greek 

 and Latin, — all with the determined object of es- 

 tablishing Atheism amongst men, by paganising all 

 the facts of Christianity — making the pagan Fata, 

 Fates or Necessity, the prime ruler of all things 



— involving even the ecclesiastical writers or 

 Fathers in his onslaught : " Ut eos qui Ecclesi- 

 astici dicuntur scriptores omittamus, qui plurimi 

 certe sunt, sed aeque supposititii, proxime se- 

 quentis aevi et fabricaa." He spared Homer, but 

 gave no reason for his mercy, whilst he exhausted 

 his erudition to prove that the Greek version of 

 the Bible is " incredibly corrupt, and composed 

 with the view of upholding the hypothesis that 

 there is no true God." 



Witt regard to the JEneid he maintained that 

 it is merely a paganised representation of the 

 Triumph of Christianity over the Jewish Dispen- 

 sation, and its establishment in Italy. 



He expressly states th^t the Trojan hero repre- 

 sents an infinitely higher personage than St. Peter 

 — " nam et iEneas Christus et Latinus Christus " 



— such are his words in expounding and demo- 

 lishing the Pseudo- Virgilius. 



It was a previous visionary who made St. Peter 

 the hero of the JEneid, — a certain Hugo, who, in 

 his Vera Historia Romana, given to the asto- 

 nished world in 1655, states this fact, with a mul- 

 titude of others in the same vein : " Ad Petrum 



igitur Virgilii iEneis pertinet nee aliura 



' Virum insignem pietate ' ilia canit " (p. 98.). 



" Per Romulum et Remum Apostolos 



Petrum atque Paulum," c. xxiv. 



Hardouin's views respecting the JEneid will be 

 found learnedly and amusingly set forth in his 

 Pseudo- Virgilius — Harduini Opera Varia, Ams. 

 1733. The same volume contains his Pseudo- 

 Horatius, still more amusing ; and his Athei De- 

 tecti, — an onslaught against the Jansenists and 

 Cartesians, — the whole folio being a perfect gem 

 of erudite hallucination and reasoning madness. 



In the Oent. Mag. vol. iv. p. 8. there is an ab- 

 stract of his theory, and in vol. xl. p. 290. a gene- 

 ral view of Hardouin's matured or senile system 

 as set forth in his posthumous Prolegomena ad 

 CensuramScriptorum Veterum, published by Paul 



