100 THE prior's cross. 



pillar consecrated to a loftier purpose. The cross is built into the 

 hedge, and I have not been able to obtain an opportunity of 

 seeing the opposite side. 



This derivation of a very common proverb is at least as good 

 as any that antiquaries have offered, which is tantamount to 

 saying that it is worthless.'" Our legal readers could, I dcire say, 

 supply examples to prove that '' hj hooh and hj crooJc " was a 

 phrase not uncommonly used in deeds convejdng grants of com- 

 mon of estovers. Several instances of its use are to be found 

 indeed in connection with the very grant that this stone has been 

 supposed to refer to ; and the production of them liere will not 

 only show the fallacy of the commonly received explanations of 

 the proverb, but be of wider interest as illustrating the social 

 insecurity of a not very distant age. 



A right of housebote and firebote, as well as common of 

 pasturage in Dunmecr wood, was actually granted to the poor of 

 Bodmin by one of the earlier Priors, and this right, so liable to 

 abuse, was at a later date a source of qujirrel between the Prior 

 and the people of the town. The dispute, on one occasion at 

 least, grew from angry words to blows. Probably the Prior 

 insisted too strongly on his rights, and the towns-folk were 

 encroaching on their privileges. At all events, a testimonial of the 

 town against the Prior, bearing date 1525, states "that the wood, 

 called Dynmure wood, was ever open and common for all burgesses 

 and inhabitants of Bodmyn till now of late, as well for all manner 

 kind of their beasts to common therein, as to have their burden 

 wood, to bear and carry away upon their backs, of lop, crop, Jioolc, 

 crooli, and bagwood, without contradiction, let or disturlDance of 

 any manner persons ; always reserving and saving to the Prior of 

 Bodmyn and his successors the stems of the trees for their fuel 

 and building." It goes on to complain that the bailiffs whose 

 duty it was to see that matters should be " indifferently ordered 

 according to good right and conscience," were accustomed, for 



* E.g. " The proverb of getting anything by hook or by crook is said to 

 have arisen in the time of Charles I, when there were two learned judges named 

 Hooke and Crooke, and a difficult cause was to have been gotten either by 

 Hooke or by Crooke. Spenser, however, mentions these words twice in his 

 Faery Queene, which is a proof that this proverb is much older than that 

 time, and that the phrase was not then used as a proverb, but applied as a 

 pun." — Warton. Quoted from Ptilleyii's Compendium. 



