58 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 65. 



nise the tone and the phraseology of the Courts of the 

 Eresl)urg. The /rminsule itself liaving been described 

 as a trunk of a tree, Tiior was worshipped under the 

 same rude symbol ; and it may he suspected that the 

 singular respect and reverence shown to tlie ward-staff 

 of the l'".ast Saxons is not without its relation to the 

 rites and ceremonies of the lieathcn time, though inno- 

 cently and unconsciously retained." 



At the time of publication of his learned and in- 

 teresting work, Sir Francis did nie the honour to 

 adopt some conjectural corrections of Morant'svery 

 corrupttranscript of the rhyme, which I furnished at 

 his request, in common with others sugirested by the 

 late Mr. Price. Since that time, a more mature 

 examination of it has enabled me, I think, to put 

 it into a form much more nearly reseuibling what 

 it must have originally been ; many of the cor- 

 rections being obviously required by the prose 

 details which accompany it in the MS. from which 

 Morant gave it. It may not, therefore, be unac- 

 ceptable to some of your readers, to suljjoin this 

 corrected cojiy. It may be ]iroper to premise, 

 that " The Tnle of the VVardstaff " is the tallying 

 or cutting oi^ it, and (hat it was evidently origi]ially 

 spoken in parts, assigned as under ; although it 

 should seem tliat there is no indication of this ar- 

 rangement in the MS. 



"THE TALE OF THE WARDSTAFF. 



The Bailiffe of the Liberti/. 

 " Iche athicd * the stafFe hyleve, 

 Thanne stafFe iche toke l)ylevc, 

 Byleve iclic will tellen f 

 Kow the staffo have iche got. 



Lord of Euckwood Hall, 

 " Tho the staflfe to me com 

 Als he hoveon for to don, 

 Faire and well iche him undcrfing 

 Als iche hoveon for to don. 



The Bailiffe. 

 " All iche tlicron challenged, 

 That theron was for to challenge, 

 Nameliche, — this : — and — this : 

 And all that thcr was for to challenge. 



Lord of liuchwood. 

 " Payer iche him uppdede 

 Als iche hoveon for to don. 



The Bailiffe. 

 " All iche warnyd to the Ward to cum. 

 That therto hoveon for to cum, 

 By Sunne Shining. 



Lord of Ruchwood. 

 " We our roope theder brouhton, 

 A voope beltan \, 

 Als we hoveon for don ; 

 And there waren and wakcden, 



* aMed, cut. 



f i. e. tally, or score. 



\ i. e. a rope with a hell appended. 



And (he Ward soe kept, 

 That the King was harmless, 

 And the Country scatheless. 



The Bailffe. 



" And a morn, when itt day was, 

 And the sun arisen was, 

 Faier honour weren to us toke, 

 Als us hoveon for to don; 



The Lords, and the Tenants, 



" F.iyre on the stafFe we scorden, 

 Als we hoveon for to don, 

 Fayre we him senden, 

 Theder we hoveon for to sende. 



The Bailiffe. 



" And zif ther is any man 

 'i'hat tliis wittsiggen can 

 Iche am here ready for to don 

 Azens himself, iche one, 

 Other mid him on. 

 Other mid twyn feren, 

 Als we ther weren. 



" Sir, byleve take this stafFe, 

 This is the Tale of the WardstafFe." 



It will be at once apparent that this is a corrupt 

 transcript of a semi-Saxon original of much earlier 

 date; and by comparing it with Morant's very 

 blundering copy, the conjectural corrections I 

 have essayed will be perceived to be numerous. 

 Many of them will, however, be found not only 

 warranted, but absolutely necessarj-, from the 

 accompanying prose account of the ceremony. The 

 MS. from whiL-h it was taken by Morant, was an 

 account of the Rents of the hundred of Ongar, 

 in the time of John Stonar of Loughton, who had 

 a grant of it for his life in the 34tli year of King 

 Henry YIII. He seems to have died r2th June, 

 1566, holding of the Queen, by the twentieth 

 part of a knight's fee, and the yearly rent of 

 131. 16.?. 4d., the manor, park, chase, &c., of 

 Hatfield Broad Oak, with the hundreds of Ongar 

 and Harlow; and the Wcirdstaff oi' the same hun- 

 dreds, then valued at lOlZ. 155. 10^. As the 

 Wardstaff is said by jMorant to make a considera- 

 ble figure in old records, it is reasonable to hope 

 that a more satisfactory account of it may still lie 

 amongst unsunned ancient muniments. All the 

 old Teutonic judicial assemblies were, as Sir 

 F. Palgrave remarks, held in the open air, beneath 

 the sky and hi/ the light of the sun. The following 

 is a part of the ancient rhyme by which the ])ro- 

 ceedings of the famous Vehm-Gerichte were 

 opened, which were first printed by Schottelius, 

 and the whole of which may be found in J3eck's 

 Geschichte der Wcstphcdischen Fehm-Gerichte, and 

 in Sir F. Palgrave's work. The similarity of ex- 

 pression is remarkable. 



