444 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 57. 



Duke of Suifolk, was a mercliant, is now so totally 

 lost from memory and the earth, that its very site 

 is unknown, whether wilhin the Humber, or out- 

 side Jthe Spurn ; possibly where now the reef 

 called Stony Binks at the mouth of that restuary j 

 is situated. ' 



So far, however, as an actual legend is con- 

 cerned with the destruction of a great emporium 

 of commerce, I am happy I can supply your cor- j 

 respondent with one, possibly the more acceptable 

 as it is of another famous city, not very remote 

 from Vineta, and is not without relations belonging 

 to the latter : I allude to the town of Wisby, Vis- 

 buv, A'isbye, Visburgum, on the island of Goth- 

 land, of which the following account is found in an 

 old Latin description of Sweden : 



" InsuljB unica civitas, olim potentia splendore et 

 inagnitiidine Celebris, tantarum rerum jactura fracta in 

 exiguos fines se contraxit et oppiduU speciem rufert, at 

 Jansonii Alias docet. Avx prope poitiim satis vnlidci. 

 Emporiis illis Pomeranian clarissiinis Wintta et Jiilln 

 pessum euntibus, Visbya inter omnia Rcgionum oppida 

 floruit. (Olaus Magnus, 1. 10. cap. 16.) Licet urbs 

 vetustissima Visbvcensis potentissima ac opuleniissinia 

 quondam fuerit et pro minima occasione, nempe fractionis 

 ■unius fenestralis vitri i'/.r valoris obolaris, hnmiliata sit, ta- 

 men leges niaritima; et decisiones omnium controversia- 

 rums ingulariter longe latcque observantur. Ex distructa 

 autem Vineta Gothlandos incolas marmor, ferriim, cu- 

 prum, stannnm, argentum, et inter alia duas rcnei 

 poitas grandis ponderis petiisse, et secum in Golhland- 

 um avexisse ferunt." 



I need not remind j'our readers that the mari- 

 time code of Wisby even now intluences many of 

 the most important decisions allecting our present 

 niercantile shi]iping, it having been the model of 

 the Laws of the Acquitanian Islands of Re and 

 Oleron, which llichard I. ordered to be observed 

 in England, and which are still frequently acted 

 on. It is, however, to the notice which I have 

 marked in Italics that I would call the attention of 

 v., — the destruction of the city on account of a 

 small pane of glass not the value of an obolus : and 

 as he, no doubt, has interested himself on these 

 northern histories, request him to explain the cir- 

 cumstance more in detail. I myselt' have often 

 determined on searching Pontanus, and other 

 ancient Danish authorities, but hitherto neglected, 

 and therefore know nothing about the matter. 



As to the gates, which are more especially men- 

 tioned amongst the spoils of the ruined AVineta, we 

 find them also noticed in the same work, at its 

 account ofWincta: 



" Urbem frequentabant Gijeel aut potius Russl 

 niuharumque aliaium nationuni mercatores, quorum 

 affluxiis trequens civibus ingentes divilias et facilitates 

 conciiiavit: adeo ut portce civitatis ex are paratce, et 

 argentum tam vulgaro ibi esset ut ad comnmniiini et 

 vilium rerum usum adhibetur. 



To go, however, completely into the history of 



these gates would require a volume. It would be 

 necessary to commence with the great veneration 

 for gates in general throughout the north : 

 whether the name of their great god Thor (a 

 gateway) is cause or consequence would have to 

 be considered, and his coincidence, in this respect, 

 with Janus and Janua, the eldest deity of the 

 Italians, which I have more largely discussed in an 

 Essay on a British Coin ivith the Head of Janus, 

 in the 21st No. of the Journal of the British Archte- 

 ological Association. Next, the question would 

 arise, whether these gates have not been migratory, 

 like those of Somnauth, which Mahmoud took to 

 Gazni from a similar principle of deeply-rooted 

 ancient veneration, — relics of sanctity rather than 

 trophies of victory, and which Lord Ellenborough 

 was so unjustly ridiculed for endeavouring to re- 

 store. Thirdly, therefore, also whether the famous 

 gates of the cathedral of Novogorod may not be 

 identical with those which have successively adorned 

 Yineta's and AVisby's portals ; and whether those 

 which are still the ornament of the west door of 

 the cathedral of Hildesheim, (which, according to 

 the inscription which crosses their twenty scriptural 

 bas-reliefs, were cast l)y Bereward, the thirteenth 

 bishop, in 1015), may not be an existing and 

 beautitul example ; as is the bronze column, with 

 the bas-reliefs of passages of the New Testament 

 winding round it, and placed in the same cathe- 

 dral close. It would not be too much to surmise, 

 that even the beaittiful gate of the Florence bap- 

 tistery are from the same atelier, as an old Italian 

 author sings ; 



" O Germania gloriosa, 

 Tu \asa ex aurichalcis 

 Ad nos subinde mittes.'' 



William Bell, Phil. D. 



NICHOLAS FERRAR AND THE SO-CALLED ARMINIAN 

 NUNNERY OF LITTLE GIDDING. 



(Vol. ii., pp. 119. 407.) 

 Ilearno, the antiquary, has preserved two curious 

 documents relating to the Little Gidding esta- 

 blishment in the A])pendix to his Preface to Peter 

 Lungtoff's Chronicle, Nos. IX. and X. See also 

 Thoina Caii Vinchcia, vol. ii. The most complete 

 account of this remarkable man is that by Dr. 

 Peckard, formerly Master of IMagdalen College, 

 Cambridge, entitled Memoirs of the Life of Nicho- 

 las Ferrar, published in 1790, which has now 

 become extremely scarce, but has been reprinted 

 by Di-. Wordsworth, in his Ecclesiastical Bio- 

 graphy, who has given in anAppendi.x an account 

 of the visit of the younger Nicholas Ferrar to 

 London, from a jMS. in the Lambeth Library. 

 The Life of Nicholas Ferrar, by Dr. Turner, 

 Bishop of Ely, came into the hands of the cele- 

 brated Dr. Dodd, who published an abridgment 



