406 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[2"« S. IX. Mat 2G. '60. 



servance, beginning from Quinquagesima Sunday. 

 This also the church of Milan adopted. Seven 

 weeks, however, containing each five fasting days 

 will give only the number thirty-five. This was 

 raised to thirty-six by the last Saturday, the eve 

 of the grand festival of our Lord's resurrection, 

 being observed as a fast. Tims was paid the an- 

 nunltithe of penitential sacrifice. I could quote 

 various authorities for these statements, but 

 Martene, I suppose, will be accepted as suffi- 

 cient : — 



"Tempore tamen S. Ambrosii Ecclesia JVTediolanensis 

 quadragesimam non a sexta, sed a. septima ante pascha- 

 tia festum Dominica observare solebat, quippe-ex illis 

 erat, quae prseter Dbminieos dies, etiam Sabbato jejnnium 

 subtrahebat, ut constat ex S. Ambrosii libra de Elia et 

 jejunin. cap. 10." (2>e Antiquis Ecclesia: Ritibus, lib. IV. 

 cap. 18. sect. 5.). 



And again as to the Greek church : — 



" Grseci ab initio septem hebdomadas jejunio conse- 

 crarunt ; octavam deinde addiderunt, quam carnis-privii 

 appellare solent, eo quod a solis carnibus in ea abstineant, 

 permisso casei et lacticinioram usu, per totam deinceps 

 quadragesimam inhibito." {Ibid. sect. 8.) 



Some of the ancient Greeks excepted also the 

 Thursdays as well as the Saturdays and Sundays, 

 and in that case commenced the quadragesimal fast 

 from Septuagesima. (Ratramnus,'lib.iv., con.Gra- 

 cos, cap. 4.) See also on this subject Baronius 

 and Spondanus, ad annum lvii. 



This being so, I cannot agree with Mr. Buck- 

 ton in the assertion that the present " practice at 

 Milan is of far greater antiquity than that of 

 Rome." And although that diocese does not con- 

 form to the present discipline of the church by 

 commencing the fast on Ash- Wednesday, yet, as 

 Ferraris informs us (in v. Quadrugesima), it makes 

 up for it by observing the Rogation days, not 

 merely as days of abstinence from flesh meat, 

 like the rest of the church, but as fasting days 

 also. The fast consists in taking one meal only, 

 as well as abstaining from flesh meat. I mention 

 this because many Protestants are not aware of 

 the distinction. 



There grew up, however, in the church a de- 

 sire of imitating our Blessed Lord in the exact 

 number of actual fasting days, i. e. forty, by add- 

 ing to the thirty-six four in the week preceding 

 Quadragesima Sunday. When did this become 

 the law of the church, and by whom instituted ? 

 Not by Gregory the Great, as your correspondent 

 W. C. alleges : that opinion is quite exploded. 

 Neither was it by Gregory II. as Mr. Buckton 

 affirms. Both these mistakes originated in a mis- 

 understood passage in Gratian. Benedict XIV. 

 will be acknowledged a high authority on a sub- 

 ject like this. He discusses this question in his 

 learned work, De Synodo Dicecesand, lib. xi. cap. 

 1., from which I thus quote: — 



"Quo verb tempore, et quo auctore id factum fuerit, 

 difficile est definire." 



After dismissing various statements as unten- 

 able, among the rest those above alluded to, he 

 comes to the following conclusion : — 



"In tanta itaque rerum obscuritate, et auctorum dis- 

 crepantia, illud videtur arfirmandum, quod opinantur 

 citatus Natalis Alexander, et Thomassinus, tract, de jeju- 

 nio, part II. cap. 2., nimirum ccepisse prius nonnullos 

 fideles, ex singulari quadam pietate, quatuor dips, Domi- 

 nicae Quadragesima} prsevios, antepaschali jejunio adji- 

 cere; eorumque morem, ab universa Ecclesia Latina pau- 

 latim receptum, vim et robur legis tandem obtinuisse; 

 quam posted in Concilio Beneventano, anni 1091, firmavit 

 Urban us II., Can. IV., ' Nullus omninb laicus, post diem. 

 Cineris et cilicii qui caput jejunii dicitur, carnibus vesci 

 audeat: " 



The laity only are here mentioned, because the 

 clergy, from a remote period, had been accustomed 

 to begin their fast from Quinquagesima. This 

 was confirmed and enforced upon them by the 

 Council of Clermont, as may be seen in Matthew 

 Paris, ad an. 1095, and in Hardouin's Coll., torn, 

 vi. part ii. The canon runs thus : — 



"Nemo laicorum a capite jejunii, nemo Clericorum a 

 Quinquagesima usque in Pascha carnes comedat." 



John Williams. 



Arno's Court. 



TART HALL. 

 (2 nd S. ix. 282.) 



Not far from the present Buckingham Gate 

 stood Tart Hall and the Mulberry Garden ; the 

 latter being planted in 1609, by order of James 

 the First, with the view of producing silk in Eng- 

 land. To carry out this object, he caused several 

 ship-loads of mulberry-trees to be imported from 

 France: and in 1629, we find a grant made 

 to Walter Lord Aston, appointing him to the 

 " custody of the garden, mulberry trees, and silk- 

 worms, near St. James's, in the County of Mid- 

 dlesex." The speculation proving a failure, the 

 Mulberry Garden, within a few years, was con- 

 verted into a place of fashionable amusement. 



John Evelyn says, under the date May 11, 

 1654 : — 



" My Lady Gerrard treated me at Mulberry Garden, 

 now the only place of refreshment about the town for 

 persons of the best quality to be exceedingly cheated at ; 

 Cromwell and his partisans having shut up and seized 

 on Spring Garden, which, till now, had been the usual 

 rendezvous for the ladies and gallants at this season." 



To which passage the following note is added 

 in the last edition of Evelyn's Diary (1850, vol. i. 

 p. 288.): — 



" Buckingham House (now the Royal Palace), was 

 built on the site of these gardens [;'. e. the Mulberry 

 Garden]: see Dr. King, iii. 73. ed. 1776; Malcolm's 

 Londinium Redivivum, iv. 263. ; but the latter afterwards, 

 p. 327., says that the piece of ground called the Mul- 

 berry Garden was granted by Charles II. in 1672 to 

 Henry Earl of Arlington ; in that case it would be what 

 is now called Arlington Street, unless it extended up to 

 the Royal falace." 



