44 



Devizes. 



Other towns at which it is said to be made are Coventry, 

 Shrewsbury, and Bury in Lancashire. At Bury, on what is called 

 Mothering or Mid-lent Sunday, when young folks go to pay their 

 dutiful respects to their parents, they go provided with this offer- 

 ing, and the consumption is said to be enormous. At Shrewsbury 

 it is made in the form of a pie, the crust being of saffron and very 

 thick. At Devizes, as I understand, it has no crust, is star-shaped, 

 and the saffron is mixed with a mass of currants, spice and candied 

 lemon. The common Shropshire story about the meaning of the 

 name Simnel is well known. A happy couple had a domestic dis- 

 pute as to whether they should have for their day's dinner a boiled 

 pudding or a baked pie. Words began to run high ; but mean- 

 while the dinner lay undressed, and they were getting hungry. So 

 they came to a compromise by first boiling and then baking the 

 dish that was prepared. To thi3 grand effort of double cookery 

 the name of Simnel was given, because his name was Simon and 

 her's was Nell. The real history however of this famous compo- 

 sition is very different. The name is of very great antiquity, and 

 in Latin is called Siminellus ; and that from a Greek word signi- 

 fying sifted or fine flour of wheat, mentioned among the finest kinds 

 of bread, by Galen the physician who was born in A.D. 131. Other 

 languages have words very like it for fine flour : the German 

 semmel, the Italian semolino. Originally therefore it was most 

 likely not the heavy piece of pastry that it now is, bnt a lighter 

 cake, considered as a treat by people who lived on coarser fare. 

 The word siminellus is frequently met with in mediaeval deeds. In 

 the year 1044, when a King of Scotland was visiting at the English 

 Court, an order was issued for twelve siminels for him and his suite 

 every day. The Monks of Battel Abbey in Sussex had by their jl 

 rules bread of the most nutritious and digestible kind ( ;< q.ui vulgdll 

 simenel vocatur ") commonly called simenel. After this learned ex- L 

 planation, Archaeologists may perhaps be tempted before they 

 leave Devizes to try this archaeological confection ; but they had 

 better not eat too much of it, for an old gentleman of the year 

 1595, speaking no doubt from melancholy experience, gives this 

 warning upon the subject, " Sodden bread which bee called Simnels, 

 bee verie unwholesome !" 



