July 8. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



39 



as it denounces a threat, a curse, and a punish- 

 ment, which could not have been fulfilled by the 

 voluntary perpetration of inhuman cruelties on 

 the part of a father. F. C. Husenbeth. 



I do not find any difference among the com- 

 mentators to whom I have access, as to the mean- 

 ing of the curse in Joshua vi. 26., fulfilled in the 

 case of Hiel the Bethelite, 1 Kings xyi, 34. AH 

 his sons were to die in succession, beginning with 

 the eldest even to the youngest, during the build- 

 ing of the city. I do not see any other meaning 

 that can be attached to the words, conveying the 

 notion of a punishment for the audacity of the 

 rebuilder. "Write this man childless," was a 

 familiar curse. And there is a manifest appro- 

 priateness in the fact, that a succession of judg- 

 ments should fall upon him as the work went on ; 

 each being a louder call from the Almighty to 

 stop him in his impious course. G. T. Hoaee. 



Tandridge. 



Will of Francis Rous (Vol. ix., p. 440.). — At 

 p. 441. the words "The Right Honorable Francis 

 Rous, Esq., acknowledged this to be his last will 

 and testament, the 12th day of April, 1658," there 

 is the following note : " It should doubtless be 

 1657." But the text is correct, and the foot-note 

 erroneous. The commencement of the year is 

 counted from March 25. The will was written on 

 March 18, 1657, which would be March 18, 

 1658, if the year were reckoned to begin on 

 January 1. It was acknowledged on April 12, 

 1658, less than one month after it was written, 

 since the legal commencement of a new year 

 had intervened between the writing and the 

 acknowledgment. Finally, it was proved on 

 Feb. 10, 1658. The writer of the foot-note pro- 

 bably omitted to observe that, in consequence of 

 the legal mode of computing the date, Feb. 10, 

 1658, is nearly ten calendar months later than 

 April 12, 1658. 



The present case affords a good example of a 

 mode of dating, which has been a frequent occa- 

 sion of perplexity and error. John T. Graves. 



Cheltenham. 



Per Centum Sign (Vol. ix., p. 451.). — These 

 arbitrary characters are adopted for facility of 

 expression, the — 00 — denoting, arithmetically, 

 the ciphers composing the centum ; and the man- 

 ner of writing it thus, %, is adopted for certainty 

 and convenience, which are important elements in 

 commercial transactions. 



The contraction viz. is a curious instance of 

 the universality of arbitrary signs. There are 

 few people now who do not readily comprehend 

 the meaning of that useful particle; a certain 

 publican excepted, who, being furnished with a 

 list of the requirements of a festival in which that 

 word appeared, apologised for the omission of one 



of the items enumerated : he informed the com- 

 pany that he had inquired throughout the town 

 for some viz, but he had not been able to procure 

 it. He was, however, readily excused for his 

 inability to do so. 



Vi^. being a corruption of videlicet, the termin- 

 ation sign was ^, never intended to represent the 

 letter "z," but simply a mark or sign of abbrevi- 

 ation. It is now always written and expressed as 

 a " z" and will doubtless continue to be so. This 

 is one of many arbitrary modes of expression, the 

 use of which is known to many, and few desire to 

 know how they became invented. G. M. B. 



Mitcham, Surrey. 



Slavery in England (Vol. ix., p. 421.). — The 

 slavery which existed in England under the 

 Saxons, and which was not entirely obliterated 

 till the beginning of the seventeenth century, was 

 more properly called villenage. It was, as Black- 

 stone observes : 



" A species of tenure neither strictly feudal, Norman, 

 or Saxon, but mixed and compounded of them all." 



This villenage is so graphically described by 

 Blackstone, in his Commentaries, that I will quote 

 a few passages in answer to Prestonibnsis's 

 Queries : 



" Under the Saxon government there were, as Sir 

 William Temple speaks, a sort of people in a condition 

 of downright servitude, used and employed in the most 

 servile works; and belonging, both they, their children 

 and effects, to the lord of the soil, like the rest of the 

 cattle or stock upon it." — Vol. ii. book ii. c. 6. 



" These villeins, belonging principally to lords of 

 manors, were either villeins regardant, i. e, annexed to 

 the manor or land ; or else they were in grost, or at 

 large, i. e. annexed to the person of the lord, and trans- 

 ferable by deed from one owner to another. They 

 could not leave their lord without his permission ; but 

 if they ran away, or were purloined from him, might 

 be claimed and recovered by action, like beasts or other 

 chattels. They held, indeed, small portions of land, 

 by way of sustaining themselves and their families; but 

 it was at the mere will of the lord, who might dis- 

 possess them whenever he pleased : and it was upon 

 villein services, that is, to carry out dung, to hedge 

 and ditch the lord's demesnes, and any other the 

 meanest offices. A villein, in short, was in much the 

 same state with us as Lord Molesworth describes to be 

 that of the boors in Denmark, and which Stiernhook 

 attributes also to the traaU or slaves in Sxveden." — 

 Cap. 6. 



The state of servitude of these villeins was not 

 absolute, like that of the negroes in the West 

 Indies; for, as Hallam (Middle Ages, vol. i. 

 p. 149.) observes : 



•' It was only in respect of his lord, that the villein, 

 at least in England, was without rights ; he might in- 

 herit, purchase, sue in the courts of law; though, as 

 defendant in a real action or suit, wherein land was 



