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altaris D. Petri. Ab hac voce deducta sine dubio, vox Francica, quod pauci sciunt. V. H. This now is very express on my side of the question; but then on the other hand it must be confessed that the Latin form Dominica in Brandonibus, which we meet with in the first extract, does not so well agree with this etymology. It does not appear, though, what authority there is for that Latin name, nor, supposing it to be the French word brandon, from what sense of that word it takes its rise.

IV. The fourth is this; "Brandon, torche, et branche d'arbre, parceque des branches du tæda ou sapin on faisoit des torches.... On a appellée le dimanche des brandons, le premier dimanche de Careme.... Ce nom vient de ce que par un reste d'idolatrie, quelques paysans mal instruits alloient ce jour la avec de torches de paille ou de bois de sapin allumées, parcourir les arbres de leurs jardins et de leurs vergers, et les apostrophant les uns apres les autres, ils les menacoient de les coups par le pied, et de les bruler; s'ils ne portoient pas du fruit cette année la... On donne a Lyon le nom de brandons a des rameux verds que le peuple va querir tous les ans aux Fauxbourg de la Guillotiere, le premier dimanche de careme, et auxquels il attache des fruits, des gateaux, des oublies, et avec ces brandons il rentre dans la ville. Ce'st ce qui a fait donner a ce dimanche le nom de dimanche de brandons."

The occasions of the name here given, are different from of the rest. The whole is submitted to the public by,

any

1756, Jan.

Sir,

Yours, &c.

SAMUEL PEGGE.

XXXII. On the Custom of Swearing in Discourse.

MR. URBAN,

THAT the vice of swearing in common discourse, is at this day but too frequent in this nation, will be allowed; but then, I think, it is chiefly found amongst the lower sort of people; and I remember an observation I have read somewhere That it came in at the head, but is going out at the tail:" I hope the observation is true, and that in time this horrible custom will totally vanish, both in head and

tail. However, this implies that at first it prevailed most amongst the nobility and gentry, and "To swear like a lord," and "To swear like an emperor," are expressions of the same denotement, and which, I dare say, have often sounded in your years. It is astonishing with what facility our kings would formerly swear at every turn. The form used by Henry VIII. was by the mother of God, and accordingly Shakespeare, adhering to the history, introduces him saying,

Now, by my holy dame."
And again,

"By God's blest mother."

And afterwards,

"By holy Mary."

Shak. Hen. VIII. Act 3. Sc. 4.

The oath of the conqueror was "By the splendor of God," see Rapin, p. 165, 180. in Not. and that of Rufus, as we are told, "By St. Luke's face," for so Rapin I. p. 189. "Whereupon the king told the monk, swearing by St. Luke's face, his usual oath, that he best deserved the abbey, and should have it for nothing." But I think there is a great mistake in this matter; for though the Roman church pretends to have the head of St. Luke, both at Prague and at Rome, (See Patrick's Devotions of the Romish Church, p. 14.) yet I think Rufus did not swear by the face of St. Luke, but by the face of Christ. In the monkish historian Eadmarus, this prince swears four times; 1st. per sanctum vultum de Luca, p. 19. 2d. Per vultum dei, p. 30. 3d. Per vultum de Luca, p. 47. And lastly, per vultum dei again, p. 54. It appears to me that the king intended the same oath in all the four places, and that if he designed to swear by St. Luke's face, in those two instances where St. Luke is mentioned, he would have said per vultum Lucæ, and not per vultum de Lucâ, for per vultum de Lucâ, cannot signify St. Luke's face, that is, it is not equivalent to per vultum Lucæ, the Latin writers never using de by way of periphrasis for the genitive case. And therefore I take the truth of the matter to be this, that whereas, in every case, the king

[* When lord Lyttleton's History of Henry II. was published, in which this outh received a different interpretation, Dr. Pegge retracted his opinion, and received a letter from his lordship, acknowledging the candour with which it was relinquished. E.]

intended to swear by God's face, or the face of Christ, he meant more especially to swear by some particular one painted by St. Luke, of whose works as a painter, the ancients pretended, as I think the Romanists still do, to have many specimens. See Dr. Cave's Lives of the Apostles, p. 180. Thus the faces of Christ being various, first his real face; secondly, the veronica, or his face impressed upon the handkerchief, concerning which see Calmet's Dict. in voc. and thirdly, this painted by St. Luke; the king chose to swear by this last, and this last might very well be expressed by per sanctum vultum de Luca, that is, de Luca factum.The conclusion is, that the usual oath of king William Rufus, was not by St. Luke's face, but by the face of Christ, depicted by St. Luke, who is said to have been very skilful in that profession, is at this day the reputed patron of the painters, and concerning whom and his works, as an artist, much I presume may be seen in a tract of Greyer the Jesuit, (and something probably about his pourtraitures of Jesus Christ) but for my part, I have not the book by me. I am, Sir, Yours, &c.

1754, Sup.

PAUL GEMSEGE.

XXXIII. On the Origin of Tradesmen's Tokens.

MR. URBAN,

THE best account of the money, called Tradesmen's Tokens, which we have at present, I presume is to be drawn from the different pages of Mr. Leake's Historical Account of English Money, London, 1745, 8°. Mr. Thoresby's Musæum, p. 379, and Mr. Drake's Eboracum, in the appendix, p. cx. from whence it appears, that from and during the reign of queen Elizabeth to that of king Charles II. the tradesmen and victuallers in general, that is, all that pleased, coined small money or tokens for the benefit and convenience of trade. And for this there was in a manner a perfect necessity, since, at that time, there were but few brass halfpennies coined by authority, and no great quantity of farthings, which likewise were in bulk very small.

Now this small money, by which I mean halfpence and farthings, were coined by the incorporations of cities and boroughs, by several of the companies there, and by the tradespeople and victuallers at pleasure, both in them, and

in country villages: it was struck for necessary change; the sorts were, as I said, halfpence and farthings; the figure was sometimes eight square, but mostly round; the devices very various; and the materials were lead, tin, copper, or brass. Every community, tradesman, or tradeswoman, that issued this useful kind of specie, was obliged to take it again when it was brought to them, and therefore in cities and larger towns, where many sorts of them were current, a tradesman kept a sorting box, into the partitions of which, (which we may suppose were nearly as many as there were people there that coined) he put the money of the respective coiners, and at proper times, when he had a competent quantity of any one person's money, he sent it to him, and got it changed into silver. One of these sorting boxes I once saw, at the city of Rochester in Kent, with ten or a dozen partitions in it.

And in this manner they proceeded till the year 1672, when king Charles II. having struck a sufficient quantity of halfpence and farthings for the intention and exigencies of commerce, these Nummorum Famuli were superseded, and an end was put to these shifts and practices of the victuallers and shopkeepers, as being no longer either necessary or useful.

The inquiry then is, how this affair of coining was managed and conducted by the private tradesman. At the borough of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, Mr. Edward Wood, and afterwards his son Richard Wood, who were both of them apothecaries, coined money amongst others; and on the death of the late Mr. Edward Wood, son of the said Richard, the dies and the press were found in the house, from whence we are enabled to comprehend the whole process, which may be presumed not to have been very intricate. These Woods coined only halfpennies, and there were two sets of dies, one for the father's, and the other for the son's money, who I suppose had a set of dies made for himself on his father's decease. They were apothecaries, as was mentioned above, and the device was accordingly Apollo Opifer. These dies I have seen, and by the favour of the gentlemen concerned, to whom I am greatly obliged, one set has fallen into my possession. What I mean by a set is an obverse and reverse; these were cut upon two small pieces of steel, which were afterwards welded upon a larger block of iron. The press consisted of four pieces of good oak, not less than four inches thick, and very strongly dove-tailed together. In the upper cross-piece was fastened an iron box with a female screw, through

[blocks in formation]

which there passed a stout iron screw of an inch or more diameter, to the bottom of which was fixed one of the dies; whilst the other was received into a square hole made in the bottom cross-piece, where it lay very steady as in a proper bed. The screw was wrought by hand, in the manner of a capstan, by means of four handles affixed to the top of it, of about nine inches long each. And thus, after the copper was reduced to a proper thickness, shorn to a size, and commodiously rounded, many hundreds of halfpence might be coined, by two persons, in a very short time, by a man we will suppose to ply the screw, and a woman or boy to put on and take off the pieces. And yet, I assure you, sir, these Chesterfield halfpennies were extremely well struck.

1757, Nov.

Yours, &c.

S. P.*

XXXIV. Letter from Mr. Ames, Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries in London, to Dr. Bevis; in which were inclosed some ancient dates found in the pulling down part of London Bridge

in 1758.

SIR,

I HAD about two years ago, in some remarks on a date found among the rubbish in taking down the Black Swan Inn in Holbourn, given my opinion, that our numerical characters were first brought into England at the return of Richard I.† from the holy wars, and that probably our people had learned them among the Saracens ; but that it was some time after this that they were received among us, or that people were convinced of their utility.

Now having looked farther into this matter, I continue still of the same mind, and would willingly be informed from you, how early these characters were introduced into astronomical MSS. in England, as I know you must have sought after such in the libraries: for how astronomers could carry on their calculations in the Roman way of notation, I am not able to conceive.

The Arabians and Persians are said to have had these characters many ages ago; and it is certain they are to be

[* Samuel Pegge.]

+He came back to England in 1124.

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