Mat 31. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



429 



■without being aware of tliis fiict, I took the liberty 

 of inquiring to which three he alluded ; when I was 

 unhesitatingly told, " Why, Sain Tandrew's, Sain 

 Taustiu's, and Sain Tediuund's, to be sure ! " Let 

 ine then be allowed to repeat Aeun's question, and 

 to ask, " Why not Tanthony for Saint Anthony ? " 

 The same worthy citizen was once sheriff of 

 Norwich, and, as is, or haply was, the custom, — for 

 I know not how these matters are managed now- 

 a-days, — went forth in civic state to meet the 

 judges of assize. When their lordships were 

 seated in the sheriff's carriage, one of them cha- 

 ritably observed, " Yours, I believe, is a very 

 ancient city, jMr. Sheiifi'! " to v^hich the latter, a 

 little flurried, no doubt, at being thus so pointedly 

 addressed, but in decided accents, replied, " It 

 was ONCE, my Lord ! " And without stopping to 

 consider what was passing in his mind when he 

 gave utterance to these somewhat ambiguous 

 words, may we not take them up, and ask whether 

 it be not even so, not only as regards Norwich, 

 but most of her venerable sister towns as well ? 

 AVhere are their quondam glories— their arts and 

 rare inventions — their " thoughts in antique 

 words conveyed " — their " boast of heraldry " — 

 their pngeantries and shows ? Where their high- 

 peaked gables — their curiously wrought eaves 

 and overhanging galleries — their quaint door- 

 ways, so elaborately carved, and all their other 

 cunning devices ? — " Modern Taste," with finger 

 pointed to the newest creation of her plaster 

 genius, triumphantly echoes the monosyllable, 

 and answers, "Where ?" Well, we are perforce 

 content ; only with this proviso : — if, fatigued with 

 the tinselled superficialities and glossy refinements 

 of the present, we are fain to " cast one longing 

 lingering look behind," and chance to light upon 

 some worthy illustrative memorial of the litera- 

 ture, the manners, or domestic life of the past, — 

 that the spirit of Captain Cuttle's sage advice be 

 made our own, and that we forthwith transfer our 

 prize lor the critical examination of " diving 

 antiquaries " to the conservative pages of " Notes 

 AND Queries." Cowgill. 



. The Tanthony. — Will your correspondent Arun 

 permit me to refer him to an authority for the 

 use of the word " Tanton " for St. Anthony ? An 

 hospital in York, dedicated to St. Anthony, after 

 the dissolution came into the possession of a gild 

 or fraternity of a master and eight keepers, who 

 were commonly called " Tanton Pigs." Vide 

 Drake's Ehorucum, p. 315. A. 



Tanthony Bell at Kimholton. — " Tanthony " is 

 from St. Anthony. In Hampshire the small pig of 

 the litter (in Essex called " the ca<l") is, or once 

 was, called " the Tanthony i)ig." Tigs were espe- 

 cially under this saint's caie. The ensign of the 

 order of St. Anthony of llainault was a collar of 

 gold made like a hermit's girdle; at the centre 



thereof hung a crutch and a small bell of gold. 

 St. Anthony is styled, among his numerous titles, 

 " Meiubroruni restitutor," and " Doemonis fuga- 

 tor:" hence the bell. 



" Tlie Egyptians have none but wooden bells, except 

 one brought by the Franks into the monastery of St. 

 Anthony." — Rees' Cyclopcedia, art. Bell. 



I hope Arun will be satisfied with this connexion 

 of St. Anthony with the pig, the crutch, aud the 

 bell. 



" The staff" in the figure of the saint at Merthyr 

 is, I should think, a crutch. 



" The custom of making particular saints tutelars 

 and protectors of one or another species of cattle is still 

 kept up in Spain and other places. They pray to the 

 tutelar when the beist is sick. Thus St. Anthony is 

 for hogs, and we call a poor starved creature a Tanlony 

 pig." — Salmon's History of Htrtfordshire, 1728. 



A. Holt White, 

 May I venture to observe, in confirmation of 

 Arun's suggestion as to the origin of this term, 

 that the bell ajjpears to have been a constant attri- 

 bute of St. Anthony, although I have ti-ied in vain 

 to discover any allusion to it in his legend ? 



Frederick von Schlegel, in describing a famous 

 picture by Bramanted'Urbino {Esthetic and Mis- 

 cellaneous Works, p. 78.), mentions St. Anthony as 

 "carrying the hermit's little bell;" and Lord 

 Lindsay, in the Introduction to his Letters on 

 Christian Art (vol. i. p. 192.), says that St. An- 

 thony is known by " the bell and staff, denoting 

 mendicanc}'." If this be the case, the bell at 

 Kimholton was doubtless intended originally to 

 announce the presence of some wayfarer or men- 

 dicant. Tanthony is a common contraction for 

 St. Anthony, as in the term "a Tanthony pig;" 

 and a similar system of contraction was in use 

 aniongst the troubadours, who put Na for Donna; 

 as Nalombarda for Donna Lomharda. 



The bell carried by St. Anthony is sometimes 

 thought to have reference to his Temptations ; 

 bells being, in the words of Durandus, "the trum- 

 pets of the eternal king," on hearing which the 

 devils " flee away, as through fear." I think, how- 

 ever, that these words ap[)ly rather to church bells. 



E. J. M. 



PILGRIMS KOAD TO CANTERBURY. 



(Vol. ii., pp. 199. 237. 269. 316.) 

 I think those of your readers who are interested 

 in this Query will feel that the replies it has re- 

 ceived are not quite satisfactory, and I therefore 

 trust you will find some room for the following 

 remarks. 



I would beg to ask, can there be any doubt 

 that from Southwark to Dartford, and from llo- 

 chester to their destination, Chaucer and his fel- 

 low pilgrims joLirneyed along the old Roman way, 

 then for many centuries the great thoroughfare 



