Jan. 1. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



17 



stitutions were abundant in Germany in the seven- 

 teenth century : that of the Pegnitz shepherds 

 lasted at least till the beginning of the eighteenth. 

 In Der Tlwrichte Pi-itschmeister^ a comedy printed 

 at Coblenz, 1704, one of the characters is " Phan- 

 tasirende, ein Pegnitz SchliiFer," who talks fustian 

 and is made ridiculous throughout. The comedy 

 is " von Menantes." I have another work by the 

 same author : Galante, Verliebte, und Satyrische 

 Gedichte, Hamburg, 1704. I shall be very glad 

 to be told who he was, as his versification is often 

 VGft'y good, and his jokes, though not graceful, and 

 not very laughable, are real. II. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



MABRIAGES EN CHEMISE. — MANTELKINDEB. — 

 LEGITIMATION. 



(Yol. vi., pp.485. 561.) 



The popular error on the legal effect of marriage 

 en chemise is, I think, noticed among other vulgar 

 errors in law in a little book published some 

 twenty years ago under the name of Westminster 

 Hall, to which a deceased lawyer of eminence, 

 then young at the bar, was a contributor. I believe 

 the opinion to be still extensively prevalent, and to 

 be probably founded, not exactly in total ignorance, 

 but in a misconception, of the law. The text 

 writers inform us that " the husband is liable for 

 the wife's debts, because he acquires an absolute 

 interest in the personal estate of the wife," &c. 

 (Bacon's Abridgment, tit. "Baron and Feme.") 

 Now an imlearned person, who hears this doctrine, 

 might reasonably conclude, that if his bride has no 

 estate at all, he will incur no liability ; and the 

 future husband, more prudent than refined, might 

 think it as well to notify to his neighbours, by an 

 imequivocal symbol, that he took no pecuniary 

 benefit with his wife, and therefore expected to be 

 free from her pecuniary burdens. In this, as in 

 most other popular errors, there is found a sub- 

 stratum of reason. 



With regard to the other vulgar error, noticed 

 at the foot of Mr. Brooks' communication (p. 561 .), 

 that " all children under the girdle at the time of 

 marriage are legitimate," the origin of it is more 

 obvious. Every one knows of the " legitimatio 

 per subsequens jnatrinionium " of the canonists, 

 and how the barons assembled in parliament at 

 Merton refused to engraft this law of the Church 

 on the jurisprudence of England. But it is not 

 perhaps so well known that, upon such a marriage, 

 the premature offspring of the bride and bride- 

 groom sometimes used to perform a part in the 

 ceremony, and received the nuptial benediction 

 under the veil or mantle of the bride or the pallium 

 of the altar. Hence the children so legitimated 

 are said to have been called by the Germans ilfan/e^- 

 kinder. The learning on this head is to be found 



in Hommel's Jurisprudentia Numismaiibus Ulus' 

 trata (Lipsije, 1763), pp. 214 — 218., where the 

 reader will also find a pictorial illustration of the 

 ceremony from a codex of the Novellce in the 

 library of Christian Schwarz. The practice seems 

 to have been borrowed from the form of adopting 

 children, noticed in the same work and in Ducange, 

 verb. "Pallium, Pallio cooperire ;" and in Grimm's 

 Deut. Rechts Alterth., p. 465, 



Let me add a word on the famous negative given 

 to the demand of the clergy at Merton. No reason 

 was assigned, or, at least, has been recorded, but a 

 general unwillingness to change the laws of Eng- 

 land. As the same barons did in fact consent to 

 change them in other particulars, this can hardly 

 have been the reason. Sir W. Blackstone speaks of 

 the consequent uncertainty of heirship and dis- 

 couragement of matrimony as among the causes of 

 rejection, — arguments of very questionable weight. 

 Others (as Bishop Kurd, in his Dialogues') have 

 attributed the rejection to the constitutional re- 

 pugnance of the barons to the general principles 

 of the canon and imperial law, which the proposed 

 change might have tended to introduce, — a degree 

 of forethought and a range of political vision for 

 which I can hardly give them credit, especially as 

 the great legal authority of that day, Bracton, has 

 borrowed the best part of his celebrated Treatise 

 from the Corpus Juris. The most plausible motive 

 which I have yet heard assigned for this famous 

 parliamentary negative on the bishops' bill at 

 Merton, is suggested (quod minime reris ! ) in an 

 Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner's Report (vol. vi. 

 of the 8vo. printed series), viz. that bastardy mul- 

 tiplied the escheats which accrued to medieval 

 lords of manors. E. Smirke. 



A venerable person whose mind is richly stored 

 with "shreds and patches" of folk-lore and local 

 antiquities, on seeing the "curious marriage entry" 

 (p. 485.), has furnished me with the following 

 explanation. 



It is the popular belief at Kirton in Lindsey 

 that if a woman, who has contracted debts pre- . 

 vious to her marriage, leave her residence in a state 

 of nudity, and go to that of her future husband, he 

 the husband will not be liable for any such debts. 



A case of this kind actually occurred in that 

 highly civilised town within my informant's me- 

 mory ; the woman leaving her house from a bed- 

 room window, and putting on some clothes as she 

 stood on the top of the ladder by which she accom- 

 plished her descent. K. P. D- E. 



In that amusing work, Burn's History of the 

 Fleet Marriages, p. 77., occurs the following 

 entry: — "The woman ran across Ludgate Hill 

 in her shift ; " to which the editor has added this 

 note: — "The Daily Journal of 8th November, 

 1725, mentions a similar exhibition at Ulcomb in 



