440 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 183. 



sunshine, and that we observe our fires to burn 

 more briskly in summer than winter ; in fact, that 

 apparently " the sun's rays put out the fire." 



A. W. W. 

 Univ. Coll., London. 



Spontaneous Combustion (Yol. vil., p. 286.). — 

 A most interesting discussion of this question is 

 to be found in Liebig's Familiar Letters upon 

 Chemistry. 



That chemist proves conclusively : — 1 . That of 

 the cases adduced none is well authenticated, 

 while in most it is admitted that the victims were 

 drunkards, and that generally a candle or lamp 

 was in the room, and after the alleged combustion 

 was found turned over. 2. That spontaneous 

 combustion is absolutely impossible, the human 

 frame containing 75 or 80 per cent, of water ; and 

 since flesh, when saturated with alcohol, is not 

 consumed upon the application of a light, the 

 alcohoL burning off first, the causes assigned to 

 account for the spontaneous ignition ai'e d priori 

 extremely improbable. A. W. Wills. 



Univ. Coll., London, 



Ecclesia Anglicana (Vol. vii., p. 12.). — This has 

 always been the appellation of the Church of 

 England, just as much before the Reformation as 

 after. I copy for G. R. M. one rather forcible 

 sentence from the articles of a provincial synod, 

 holden a.d. 1257 : 



" Et super istis articuUs prjenotatis fecit Bonlfacius, 

 Cant. Arch, suorum sufFraganeorum sibi subditorum 

 universorum, prajlatorum pariter et cleri procuratorum, 

 convocationem isto anno apud Londonias semel et 

 secundo, propter gravamina et oppressiones, de die In 

 diem per summum pontificem et D. Henricum Regem 

 Ecclesi(B Anglicance irrogatas." — Wilkins' Concilia Mag. 

 Brit, et Hib., vol. i. p. 726. 



For other examples of the ante-reformational 

 use of Ecclesia Anglicana, I can give him so large 

 a reference as to Wilkins' book, passim ; to the 

 Writs for Parliament and Mandates for Convo- 

 cation contained in the Appendix to Wake's State 

 of the Church and Clergy ; and to the extracts 

 from The Annals of Waverley, and other old chro- 

 nicles, quoted in Hody's History of English Coun- 

 cils and Convocations. W. Feasek. 



Tor-Mobun. 



Wyle Cop (Vol. iv., pp. 116. 243. 509. ; Vol. v., 

 p. 44. ; Vol. vi., p. 65.). — The summit of a steep 

 hill in the town of Shrewsbury bears the name of 

 The Wyle Cop. I think that these are two Welsh 

 words, Gwyl Cop, meaning watch mound, slightly 

 altered. Oop, near Newmarket in Flintshire, has 

 a longer Welsh name, which is written by English 

 people Coperleni. This, when correctly written, 

 means, the mound of the light or fire-beacon. 

 Mole Cop, the name of a lofty hill near Congle- 



ton, appears to be a slight corruption of the Welsh 

 words Moel y Cop, the mountain of the mound. 

 There is another lofty hill in Staffordshire called 

 Stiles Cop. It seems probable that on both of 

 these hills mounds may have been made in ancient 

 times for the erection of fire-beacons. It would 

 appear that Dr. Plot did not understand the Welsh 

 language, as he has stated that he thought, in these 

 instances, the word Cop meant a mountain. 



N. W. S. (2.) 



Chaucer (Vol. vii., p. 356.). — No foreign ori- 

 ginal has ever been found for Chaucer's " House 

 of Fame." Warton fancied that it had been trans- 

 lated or paraphrased from the ProvenQal, but could 

 adduce no proof that it had. Old Geoffrey may 

 have found the groundwork somewhere, in the 

 course of his multifarious reading ; but the main 

 portion of the structure is evidently the work of 

 his own hands, as the number of jiersonal details 

 and circumstances would tend to indicate. The 

 forty lines comprising the " Lai of Marie," which 

 Chaucer has worked up into the " Nonnes Preestes 

 Tale" of some seven hundred lines, are printed in 

 Tyrwhitt's Introductory Discourse to the Canter- 

 bury Tales, and will be sufficient to show what use 

 he made of the raw material at his disposal. We 

 may fairly presume that Emerson never took the 

 trouble to investigate the matter, but contented 

 himself with snatching up his materials from the 

 nearest quarry, and then tumbling them out to 

 the public. J. M. B. 



Tunbridge Wells. 



Campvere, Privileges of (Vol. vii., p. 262.). — - 

 J. D. S. asks, " What were these privileges, and 

 whence was the term Campvere derived ? " 



In Scotland there exists an ancient institution 

 called "The Convention of Royal Burghs," which 

 still meets annually in Edinburgh, under the fixed 

 presidency of the Lord Provost of that city. It 

 is a representative body, consisting of delegates 

 elected by the town councils of the royal burghs 

 (not boroughs') of Scotland ; and their business is 

 to attend to such public measures as may affect 

 the general interests of their constituents. In 

 former times, however, their powers and duties 

 were of far more importance than they are now. 

 The Convention seems to have exercised a general 

 superintendence of the foreign trade of the king- 

 dom. With a view to the promotion of that trade, 

 they used to enter into commercial treaties, or 

 staple contracts as they were called, with the com- 

 mercial cities of the Continent; and I have now 

 before me one of these staple contracts, made with 

 the city of Antwerp in 1540; and another with 

 the city of Middleburg, in Zeeland, in 1541 ; but 

 latterly they seem to have confined themselves to 

 the town of Campvere, in Zeeland (island of Wal- 

 cheren). In all these contracts it was stipulated 



