520 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 87. 



■water. The men notliing regarding the Prohibition, 

 do press forwards to come over the water, and the 

 others do withstand, so long, that in the end, my Lord's 

 Fryer is fallen into the Water. The Bishop taketh 

 this matter in such grief, that a holy Fryer, a Religious 

 man, his own Chaplain and Confessor, should be so 

 unrevereutly cast into the Water, that he falleth out 

 with the Gentleman, and upon what occasion I kmiw 

 not, he sueth him in the Law (in his own Ecclesiastical 

 Court, where he was both party and Judge), and so 

 vexeth and tormenteth him, that in the end he was 

 fain to yeeld himself to the Bishop's devotion, and 

 seekelh all the wayes he could to carry the Bishop's 

 good will, which he could not obtain, until fur redemp- 

 tion he had given up and surrendered his patronage of 

 Sowton, with a piece of land ; all which the said Bishop 

 annexed to his new Lordship." 



In " An Exhortation, to be spoken to such 

 Parishes where they use their Perambulation in 

 Rogation Week ; for the Oversight of the Bounds 

 and Limits of their Town," is a curious passage, 

 which I subjoin : 



" It is a shame to behold the insatiablcness of some 

 covetous persons in their doings ; that where their an- 

 cestors left of their land a broad and sufficient bier- 

 balk, to carry the corpse to the Chri'^tian sepulture, 

 how men pinch at such bier-balks, which by long use 

 and custom ought to be inviolably kept for that pur- 

 pose; and now they quite ear them up, and turn the 

 dead body to he borne farther about in the high streets; 

 or else, if they leave any such meer, it is too straight 

 for trto to walk on." — Homilies, ed. Corrie, p. •199. 



It may perhaps be considered not quite irrek'- 

 vant here to state that there seems once to have 

 been an opinion, that the passage of the sovereign 

 across land had the effect of making a highway 

 thereon. The only allusion, however, to this 

 opinion which I can call to mind, occurs in Peck's 

 Antiquarian Annals of Stanford, lib. xi. s. xii. ; an 

 extract from which follows : —■ 



" From Stanford King Edward, as I conceive, went 

 to Hvmtingdon ; for in a letter of one of our kings 

 dated at that town the I'ith of July (wiihont any year 

 or king's name to ascertain the time and person it he- 

 l.jngs to), the King writes to the aldermen and bailiffs 

 of Stanford, acquainting them, that, when he came to 

 Stanford, he went through Pilsgate field (coming then 

 I suppose from Peterborough), and, it being usual it 

 seems that whatever way the King rides to any place 

 (though the same was no public way before) for every- 

 body else to claim the same liberty afterwards, and 

 thenceforth to call any such new passage the Kind's 

 highway; being followed to Huntingdon by divers of 

 his own tenants, inhabitants of Pilsgate, who then 

 and there represented the damage they should sustain 

 by such a jjractice, the King by his letters immediately 

 commanded that his passing that way should not he 

 made a precedent for other people's so doing, but did 

 utterly forbid and discharge tiem therefrom. His 

 letter, directed ' to our dearly beloved the aldern>an, 

 bailiffs, and good peciple of our Town of Stanford,' 

 upon this occasion, is thus worded: — 'Dear and 



well-beloved friends, by the grievous complaint of our 

 beloved lieges and tenents of the town of Pillesyate 

 near our town of Staunford, we have understood, that, 

 in as much as, on Tuesday last, we passed through the 

 middle of a meadow and a certain pasture there called 

 : Pillesyate meadow appertaining to the said town of 

 j Pillesyate, you, and others of the country circumjacent, 

 '■ claim to have and use an high way royal to pass 

 [ through the middle of the said meadow and pasture, 

 to the great damage and disseisin of our said lieges 

 and tenents, whereupon they have supplicated for a 

 remedy ; so we will, if it be so, and we command and 

 charge firmly, that you neither make nor use, nor suffer 

 to be made nor used by others of our said town of 

 Staunford, nor others whatsoever, no high road through 

 the middle of the said meadow and jjasture ; but that 

 you forbear from it entirely, and that you cause it to 

 be openly proclaimed in our said town, that all others 

 of our said town and the country round it, do likewise; 

 to the end that our said tenents may have and peaceably 

 enjoy the said meadow and pasture, so, and in the manner, 

 as they have done before these times, without disturbance 

 or impeachment of you or others, of what estate or 

 condition soever they be, notwithstanding that we 

 passed that way in manner as is said. And this in no 

 manner fail ye. Given under our signet at Hunt- \ 

 yngdon the 12th day of July.'" 



I am unable to say whether the opinion it was 

 the object of the above royal letter to refute was 

 general, or was peculiar to the "good people" of 

 Stanford, " and others of the country circum- 

 jacent." C. H. COOPEE. 



Cambridge, June 18. 1851. 



DOZEN OF bread; bakers dozen. 

 (Vol. ii., p. 298.; Vol. iii., p. 153.). 



From the following extracts from two of the 

 " Bury "Wills" recently published by the Camden 

 Society, it would appear that a dozen of bread 

 always consisted of twelve loaves ; and that the 

 term "Baker's dozen" arose from the practice of 

 giving, in addition to the twelve loaves, a further 

 quantity as " inbread" in the same manner as it 

 is (or tmtil recently was) the custom to give an 

 extra bushel of coals as " ingrain" upon the sale 

 of a large quantity; a chaldron, I believe. 



Francis Pynner, of Bury, Gent., by will, dated 

 Ajn-il 26, 1639, gave to feoffees certain property 

 upon trust {inter alia) out of the rents, upon the 

 last Friday in every month in the year, to provide 

 one twopenny loaf for each of forty poor people in 

 Bury, to be di^tributed by the clerk, sexton, and 

 beadle of St. Mary's parish, who were to have the 

 " inhread of the said bread." And the testator 

 also bequeathed certain other property to feoffees 

 upon trust to employ the rents as follows (that is 

 to say) : — 



" The yerely sume of ffiue pounds p'cell of the said 

 yerely rents to be bestowed in wheaten bread, to be 

 made into ptnny loaves, and upon eu"y Lord's day. 



