2"'> S. VI. 137., Aug. 14. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



139 



persons who died excommunicated, and thus the 

 sentence, which denied burial " either in the 

 church or in the churchyard," was evaded. One 

 of the Stanley family, who is known to have been 

 under the censures of the church, is buried ex- 

 actly under the centre of one of the thick walls at 

 Manchester cathedral ; an arch being thrown over 

 so that the tomb may be seen on each side. A 

 similar story occurs in the Merry Deuill of Ed- 

 monton : Maister Peter Fabell covenants with the 

 evil spirit, " when I am buried, either within the 

 church, without the- church, in the church-porch, 

 churchyard, street, field, or highway, take thou 

 my soule." When old age overtakes him, " he 

 went, and digd his deathbed in the church wal, and 

 there rested day and night, hartyly praying and 

 repenting him of all the euill he had committed." 

 The consequence is the devil, finding the letter of 

 the bond against him, is compelled to quit the field, 

 and let him die in peace. A. A. 



Bulgarian, ^c , Names (2"^ S. vi. G9.) — The 

 language spoken by the Bulgarians and their 

 Turkish conquerors is Slavonian, according to 

 Malte Brun. The termination ovo or nva does not 

 appear to be from the Slavonic plural ov, but is a 

 favourite one, as in Russian golojja, head ; zabava, 

 entertainment ; koroleva, queen ; slovo, word ; 

 tchuvstvo, sentiment ; korova, cow, &c., and in par- 

 ticular the genitive singular of all words forming 

 ego or ogo is pronounced evo or ovo, as moevo, 

 son's ; odnnvo, one's ; liovo, of whom ; whilst the 

 same termination is spoken as it is written in the 

 accusative, moego, odnogo, kogo. A rationale for 

 such idioms cannot probably be discovered. It is 

 erroneously stated in the " Bible of every Land," 

 that the Bulgarian affixes the article to the termi- 

 nation of words, for it possesses no article. This 

 mistake appears to have arisen from confounding 

 the language of the Bulgarians (=Volgarians, com- 

 ing from the Volga in the fifth century), with that 

 of their conquerors, the Turks (a.d. 1360), whose 

 language is a compound of Arabic, Persian, and 

 Tatar; the first prefixing the definite article al, 

 the Persian affixing the indefinite article i, and the 

 Tatar, like the Slavonian, having no article, but 

 supplying its place by varying the termination 

 (^. e. by inflexion and declension). This will also 

 account for similarity of terminal syllables. 



T. J. BUCKTON. 



Lichfield. 



Physicians' Fees (2"^ S. v. 495.) — In a work 

 entitled Levamen Injirrni, written about 1700, tlic 

 usual fees to physicians and surgeons at that time 

 arc thus recorded : — 



" To a graduate in physic, his due is about in.s., tliough 

 he commonly expects or demands 20.s. Those that nrc 

 only licensed physicians, their due is no more than (js. !W., 

 lliou;;h they commonly demand lO.s. A surgeon's journey 

 is 127. :( mile, be bis journey far or near. Ten groats to 

 act a bene broke or out of joint; and for letting of blood, 



Is. The cutting off or amputation of any limb is hi, but 

 there is no settled price for the cure." 



R. W. Hackwood. 



Derivation of " Caste " (2"* S. vi. 98.)— There 

 can be little doubt that we derive caste from the 

 Sp. and Port, casta, through the Fr. caste. But 

 are not all these words traceable to the Latin ? — 

 Casa is in Latin a hut, cottage, or shed, and in 

 mediaeval Latin a house of any kind (from Heb- 

 nD3, to cover). Hence casati, servants who 

 lodged on the premises, and casata, a homestead, 

 a household, a family. In Italian, casata is a 

 family, lineage, or race ; and from this Italian 

 word, dropping the second a, appears to be de- 

 j rived tlie Sp. and Port, casta. Casta, it is to be 

 observed, has properly much the same meaning as 

 the It. casata, " A race, lineage, particular breed, 

 or clan." Thomas Boys. 



Ckestmtt in Britain (2"'^ S. v. 10.)— A friend 

 has just sent me the following passage from vol. 

 Ixii. of the Quarterly Review, p. 335. It is from a 

 review of Loudon's Trees and Shrubs of Britain: 

 " In the interesting historical introduction the difficulty 

 respecting a well-known passage in Caesar's Commentaries 

 is happily explained. Cfesar says, that he found in Bri- 

 tain all the trees of Gaul except the abies, which was sup- 

 posed to mean the Scotch Jir, and the fagus, which is 

 generally considered to be the leech. Now as the Scotch 



fir and the beech are undoubtedly to be found wild in vari- 

 ous parts of Britain, and as the beech, in particular, 

 abounds in Kent, the very county through which Caesar 

 passed, this passage has thrown commentators into de- 

 spair. Mr. Loudon cuts the Gordian knot, by showing 

 that the abies of the Romans was the silver fir, and the 



fagus the sweet chesnut, neither of which trees grow wild 

 in Britain." 



This is cutting the knot with a witness ! — as if 

 Cajsar did not know the difference between Abies 

 and Pinus ; between beech-mast and Castanese 

 nuces, which last formed, as they do still, such an 

 important part of the food of the Italians. But 

 the fact is, though the beech abounds in Kent, it 

 is only in the chalk districts near Sevenoaks, &c. 

 In the weald, and on the clays, it is scarcely ever 

 found ; while chestnut grows freely everywhere. 

 If the Romans had proceeded due westward from 

 Folkstone, and turned to the north to cross the 

 river before coming upon the Bagshot sand dis- 

 trict, they would neither have observed the fir 

 nor the beech, at least in any conspicuous quan- 

 tity, though a few miles away in either direction 

 would have shown them plenty of both. A. A. 



Roses and Lances blessed by the Pope (2"^ S. vi. 

 49.) — PiincGSses were not alone favoured with 

 " la rose bcnite." Iloylin says : 



" Sergius IV. (1009) was the first that on Christmas 

 night, wilh divers ceremonies, did conseorato swords, 

 IJoses, and the like, to be sint as tokens of love and 

 honour to such I'rinces as deserved best of them, or whom 

 they desired to oblige. Thus Leo X. .sent a consecrated 

 Rose to Frederick, Duke of Saxony, requesting him to 

 banish Lulhcr; and I'liid 111., an hallowed sword to 



