412 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 55. 



" Mauther, a foolish young girl (not used)." — Ben 

 Jonson, 



Skinner is, I believe, wrong in assigning the r 

 termination to the Danish word. Such a terniina- 

 tion of the word maid is not to be found in any 

 of the Teutonic dialects. The diphthong sound 

 and the th appear frequently ; as, 



1. Moeso- Gothic : Magath or Magaths ; Mawi, 

 dim. Mawilo. 



2. Anglo-Saxon: Maetli,Maegth, (i\vQ.. Meowla. 



3. Old-German : Maget. 



4. Swedish : Moe. 



5. Norse : Moei. 



I therefore suppose the r termination in mauther 

 to be a mere corruption, like that pointed out by 

 Skinner in the Lincoln Folk-speech: or is it pos- 

 sible that it may have arisen from a confusion of 

 the words maid and mother in Roman Catholic 

 times ? In Holland the Virgin Mary was called 

 Moeder Maagd, — a ])hrase which may possibly 

 have crossed over to the East Anglian coast, and 

 occasioned the subsequent confusion. B. H. K. 



P.S. Do the words modde, moddehen, quoted by 

 Skinner, e.xist? and, if so, are they Dutch or 

 Flemish? I have no means of verifying them at 

 hand. 



[On referring to Kilian's Dictionarinm Tciitonicu- 

 Lutiiio- Gallicum (ed. 1642), we find, " Modde, Modde- 

 KEX, Pupa, Poupee. "] 



Cheshire Cat (Vol. ii., p. 377 ). — A correspon- 

 dent, T. E. L. P. B. T., asks the explanation of the 

 phrase, "griiming like a Cheshire cat." Some 

 years since Cheshire cheeses were sold in this town 

 mo\ilded into the shape of a cat, bristles being in- 

 serted to represent the whiskers. This may pos- 

 sibly have originated the saying. T. D. 



Bath. 



" Thompson of Esholt" (Vol. ii., p. 268.). — In 

 an old pedigree of the Calverley family, I find it 

 Stated thut Henry Thompson of Enholt (vihoiQ only 

 daughter Frances AVilliam Calverley of Calver- 

 ley married, and liy her acquired that property) 

 was great-grandson to Henry Thompson, 

 " One of the king's gentlemen-at-arms at the siege 

 of Boulogne (temp. H. 7.), where he notably signal- 

 ised himself, and for his service was rewarded with t'le 

 Miiixon Dieu at Dover, by gift of the king; afterwards, 

 in the reign of Eilward VI., exchanged it for the 

 manor and rectory of Bromjicld in Cumberland, and 

 the site of the late dissolved nunnery of Esholt." 



Further particulars regarding the above grant 

 of Bromejield, and a pedigree of the Thompsons, 

 are published in Archaulogia CEliana, vol. ii. 

 (1832), p. 171. W. C. Treveltan. 



Walliiigton. 



Minor's Book of Antiquities (Vol. i., p. 277. ; 

 ii. p. 344.). — I am much obliged to T. J. for his 



endeavours to help me to Minar's Book of Anti- 

 quities. But there still remains a chasm too wide 

 for me to jump ; inasmuch as Christopher IMeiners 

 published his treatise De Vero Deo in 1780, and 

 Cardinal Cusa, who refers to Minar, died in 1464, 

 being more than 300 years before. A. N. 



Croziers and Pastoral Staves (Vol. ii., pp. 248. 

 313.). — The opinion expressed by the Rev. j\1r. 

 Walcot (in your No. 50.), that by the word crazier 

 is to be understood the crossed staff belonging 

 only to archbishops and legates, while the staff 

 with a crook at its end is to be called the pastoral 

 staff, cannot, I think, be considered satisfactory, 

 for the following, among other reasons. 



Crozier is generally (I should formerly have said 

 universally) understood to mean the staff with a 

 crook, the so well-known " ensign of bishops." 



In the instances mentioned by jMr. Walcot, 

 croziers are repeatolly spoken of as having been 

 bori.e at the funerals of bishops, while the crosses 

 borne before Wolsey are called crosses, and not 

 croziers. 



The word crozier seems to be derived from the 

 media?val Latin word crocia. This is explained by 

 Ducange : "Pedum, baculus pastoralis, episco- 

 palis." Crocia seems to be derived from, or closely 

 connected with, " crocha, uncinus, lamus," and 

 " crochum, uncus quo arcubalistfe tenduntur " 

 (Ducange). Hence it appears that crozier does 

 not refer to a cross but to a crook. 



In such ancient authorities as I have had the 

 opportunity of referring to at the moment, as 

 brasses, incised slabs, &c., bishops and archbishops 

 are alike represented with the crooked staff; a 

 cross is of more rare occurrence, and at the moment 

 only two instances occur to me, one in the fine 

 brass of Frederic, son of Casimir, king of Poland, 

 and a cardinal, which is in the cathedral of Cracow, 

 and in which he is represented holding a crozier, 

 while crosses are figured on the sides under the 

 cardinal's hat. The other is in the curious brass 

 of Lambert, bishop of Bamberg, in the cathedral of 

 that city : in this the bishop holds a cross in his 

 right and a crozier in liis left hand. 



The statement that the crook of the bishop's 

 staff was bent outwards, and that of the abbot's 

 inward, is one which is often made in books; I 

 should, however, be very glad to learn whether 

 any dillereiice has been observed to exist either in 

 media?val representations of croziers on seals, 

 accompanying effigies, or in paintings, or in the 

 existing examples. So far as I have seen, the 

 crook, in all except a few early instances, is bent 

 in the same manner, i.e. inwards. N. 



Sociiiinn Boast (Vol. ii., p. 375.). — The following 

 lines "De Ruina Babylonis" occur in the works 

 of a Socinian writer, one Sanmelis Przipcovius, 

 who died in 1670, and evidently have reference to 

 those qtioted by Dr. Pusey : — 



