138 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 171. 



given in records of the palatinate of Durham and 

 the county of Northumberland, as to the services 

 attached to drengage, show that it was far from 

 being a free tenure. Yet Spelman (Gloss., ed. 

 1687, p. 184.) speaks of drenges as " tenantes per 

 servitium militare;" and Coke calls them "free 

 tenants of a manor." * From the Boldon Booh we 

 learn, however, that the services of the drengli 

 were to plough, sow, and harrow a portion of the 

 bishop's land, to keep a dog and horse for the 

 bishop's use, and a cart to convey his wine ; to 

 attend the chase with dogs and ropes; and perform 

 certain " precaria," or harvest works. To take 

 an example from the roll of Bishop de Bury in 

 1336 : — We find Nicholas de Oxenhale held of the 

 bishop in capite the manor of Oxenhale, perform- 

 ing, amongst other services, "the fourth part of a 

 drengage ; to wit, he was to plough four acres, and 

 sow the land with seed of the bishop's, and harrow 

 it, and do four days' work in autumn." And in 

 the Pipe Roll for Westmoreland, already men- 

 tioned, we find eighteen drenghs in the honour 

 held by Hugh de Morvill, who had not been en- 

 franchised by him, and who remained paying a fine 

 to be exempt from foreign service. In Northum- 

 berland the tenants in drengage paid a fixed money- 

 rent, and were subject to tallage, heriots, merchet, 

 &c. So, in the palatinate, in 25 th Bishop Hatfield 

 (a. ». 1369), John Warde, of Hoton, died seised 

 in his demesne of a messuage and sixty acres which 

 were held of the bishop in capite, by homage and 

 fealty in drengage, rendering six bushels of oats 

 and three bushels of barley, at the manor of Middle- 

 ham. ^ But the agricultural and menial services 

 were lighter than those of the villan, and, as already 

 stated, were not performed by the tenant in per- 

 son, or by those of his household. Tiiis tenure 

 existed in Tynedale at the close of the thirteenth 

 century, as appears from Rot. Orig. 20 Edw. I., 

 vol. i. p. 70., where the " consuetudinem partium 

 prsdictarum" are mentioned. " A drengage,'' says 

 Blount, in his Fragmenta Antiquitatis, " seems to 

 have consisted of sixteen acres, to be ploughed, 

 sown, and harrowed." The word drengage is de- 

 rived, by the Rev. Wm. Greenwell, in the glossary 

 to his recent valuable edition of Boldon Book, 

 from the Anglo-Saxon dreogan, to do, work, bear; 

 the root, according to Tooke, of our English word 

 drudge. Drengage is, in Kelham's Norman-French 

 Dictionary, explained to be " the tenure by which 

 the drenges held their lands." In Lye's Saxon 

 Dictionary I find " Dreng, miles, vir fortis." 



Wm. Sidney Gibson. 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 



* Spelman says they were « E genere vassallorum 

 non ignobiliura," and such as, being at the Conquest 

 put out of their estate, were afterwards restored. 



CHATTEKTOir. 



(Vol. vii., p. 14.) 



The following account of the whole of the pro- 

 ceedings at the inquest which was held at the 

 Three Crows, Brook Street, Holborn, on Friday, 

 Aug. 27, 1770, before Swinson Carter, Esq., and 

 ten jurymen, whose names are mentioned, is from 

 a MS. copy in my possession. 



I am not acquainted with any printed work 

 which contains a report of the inquest. It is not 

 in the large collection of Chatterton's Works and 

 Lives, and the innumerable newspaper and maga- 

 zine cuttings, which fill several volumes, and whTch 

 belonged to Mr. Haslewood ; nor is it in Barrett's 

 Bristol, or Herbert Croft's Love and Madness. 



" Account of the Inquest held on the body of 

 Thomas Chatterton, deceased, at the Three 

 Crows, Brook Street, Holborn, on Friday, the 

 27th August, 1770, before Swinson Carter, 

 Esq., and the following jury : — Charles Skin- 

 ner, Meres, John HoUier, John Park, 



S. G. Doran, Henry Dugdale, G. J. Hillsley, 

 C. Sheen, E. Manley, C. Moore, Nevett. 



" Mart Angell, sack maker, of No. 17. Brook 

 Street, Holborn, deposed, that the deceased came 

 to lodge at her house about nine or ten weeks ago ; 

 he took the room below the garret; he always 

 slept in the same room ; he was always very exact 

 in his payments to her ; and at one time, when she 

 knew that he had paid her all the money he had in 

 the world, she offered him sixpence back, which he 

 refused to take, saying : ' I have that here (point- 

 ing to his forehead) which will get me more.' 

 He used to sit up nearly all night, and she fre- 

 quently found his bed untouched in the morning, 

 when she went to make it. She knew that he 

 always bought his loaves — one of which lasted him 

 for a week — as stale as possible, that they might 

 last the longer : and, two days before his death, 

 he came home in a great passion with the baker's 

 wife, who had refused to let him have another loaf 

 until he paid her Zs. Qd. which he owed her pre- 

 viously. He, the deceased, appeared unusually 

 grave on the 28th August ; and, on her asking him 

 what ailed him, he answered pettishly : ' Nothing, 

 nothing — why do you ask ?' On the morning of 

 the 24th August, he lay in bed longer than usual ; 

 got up about ten o'clock, and went out with a bun- 

 dle of paper under his arm, which he said ' was a 

 treasui-e to any one, but there were so many fools 

 in the world that he would put them in a place of 

 safety, lest they should meet with accident.' He 

 returned about seven in the evening, looking very 

 pale and dejected ; and would not eat anything, 

 but sat moping by the fire with his chin on his 

 knees, and muttering rhymes in some old language 

 to her. Witness saw. him for the last time whea 



i 



