Conqueror's time, who has the expression of 15 Libr. Sterilensium, &c.*

By this method of arguing we may venture to advance one step further, and to pronounce that the Saxons had both the thing and the word in their days. As to the thing, their silver is not only all allayed, but we have traces in the monuments, of silver of different goodness being used, Thus in the tenth century Ednoth bought two hides of land for one hundred shillings optimi argentit. A passage unquestionably indicating, that this people knew something of the fineness and coarseness of silver, and also did reduce their knowledge into practice. If then they were acquainted with the thing, we are in a manner obliged to believe they had a name for it, and since the word steore signifies lex, canon, regula, it is very natural, as Mr. Somner suggests, to deduce the word sterilensis or sterlingus, (afterwards corrupted by the Normans according to the usage of their language, into esterlingus,) from thence, and to believe, that that was their term. And methinks all one can desire in a thing of this nature is, an agreement of fact and etymology.

Supposing then, for I now return to the matter in hand, that the word sterling primarily denoted the purity of the silver, the word Jaku comes exactly to the same sense; the root is jakuk, which in the Old Testament is used for pure; as for example, Jakuk Zaab, or Keseph, is the best purified gold or silver. It has been observed above, that the word sterling came in process of time to signify the piece or penny, as well as the standard, and the case is the same with the word jaku in this instrument, where it evidently, according to my apprehension, must mean a ster ling, or penny. Some may fancy, perhaps, that a jaku may possibly mean, not any certain piece of coined money, but some nominal term, as the mark for instance, and I think it

The reason why it occurs not in Domesday-day probably was, that being a term of the mint, it was then chiefly confined to those offices, which, so far as I can discover from the names of the mint-masters, were managed in the reigns of the two Williams, by Saxon artificers. The record on the contrary was compiled in the several counties by commission, and the parties concerned, as one has reason to believe, would be for the most part Normans.— However, there is no room to think this term was then so generally known, as it was afterwards,'

+ Histor. Ramesens, p. 415,

G. Somneri Gloss. in X. Script.

incumbent on me to obviate this objection; in relation to which I have to say, first that the mark of gold was not very common at this time, though perhaps there may be here and there an instance; and 2dly, that there is not the least connection between the word jaku and the word mark either in sense or orthography, one of which we have, no doubt, reason to expect. I conclude therefore upon the whole, that the jaku being no denomination, but the name of some coined piece of money, it can mean nothing else but the sterling or penny; denarim and jaku being used by the Jews of this age, just in the same manner as the Chris tians applied their words denarius and sterlingus, or penny and sterling; from whence it must follow necessarily, that the jaku of gold in this instrument must mean the gold pennies coined by King Henry III. and mentioned in the record of the 41st of his reign.

1756, Oct.

LIV. On the Octaves of Festivals.Low-Sunday and PloughMonday.

MR. URBAN,

IN ancient time, before the Reformation, our greater festivals here in England (as I presume the case is now in Popish countries) had each of them their Octave, or eighth day. Of these Octaves, or Utas, as they are often called, mention is frequently made in the law-books and glossaries, and though the word occurs not in our li turgy, yet we have certain vestiges of the thing amongst us, as in Low Sunday (which is the octave of Easter-Day, and is so called in reference to it, that being the high or principal day of the feast, and this the lower or secondary one) and the proper prefaces in the Communion Office, which are directed to be used on the festival, and seven days after*. . See Mr.

*The preface for Whit-Sunday, is to be used only six days after; but that is because the seventh day, or the octave, iş absorbed in the great festival of Trinity-Sunday.

Wheatley on those two places, as likewise Bishop Sparrow. The former of these authors again, on the Sunday after Christmas-Day, when the same collect is used, writes thus: "It was a custom among the primitive Christians, to observe the octave, or eighth day, after their principal feasts, with great solemnity; and upon every day between the feast and the octave, as also upon the octave itself, they used to repeat some part of that service, which was performed upon the feast itself." See also Bishop Sparrow, p. 113, from whom it appears, that formerly the same collect was used on Low-Sunday as on Easter-Day; and though it has now a dis tinct collect, yet this relates as expressly to the resurrection as that on Easter-Sunday does.

If you will turn into the calendars prefixed to the Roman Missals and Breviaries, you will find many of the Festa Duplicia, or Higher Feasts, dignified with Octaves; see also Dr. Mareschal's Observations on the Saxon Gospels, p. 538.

Now the feast of the Epiphany, or the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, is Festum Duplex in the calendars above cited, or an holiday of the first rank, and has there its octave, (as likewise it very anciently hadt) which falls upon the 13th of January, or the 30th day after Christmas; and you will find, upon trial, that Christmas-Day, as the old saying in these northern parts imports, is one of the twenty days of festivity, supposing that feast to be kept till the octave of the Epiphany, and not one of the twelve, if you terminate the observation of it on the day of the Epiphany itself. Whereupon I observe, that the feast of the Nativity was anciently prolonged, in some respects, till the said twentieth day; the expression here under consideration clearly implies it; but this was the utmost extent; for the Plough-Monday, which is the Monday after the twelfth day, when the labour of the plough and the other rustic

* You will find the first Sunday after Easter called Low-Sunday, not only by these authors, but also by Dr. Mareschal, in his Observations on the Saxon Gospels, p. 535, and in the common almanacks. In country parishes, where weekly communions are in a manner left off, there is still, in many places, a celebration of it on Low-Sunday, the octave of Easter-Day.

+ Dr. Mareschal's Observations on Saxon Gospels, p. 528 and 533. Johnson's Collection of Canons, &c. Anno MCLXXV. sect. 14. N.B. Mr. Wheatley seems to doubt, whether the Apparition of our Lord, mentioned in this last author, means the Epiphany, or the Transfiguration: but it means the former, as is evident from comparing the beginning of the preface, Quia cum unigenitus tuus, in Dr. Wilkins's Councils, i. p. 473, with the Roman missal on the Epiphany, where you have a preface that begins 19,

toils begin, never is extended further than the twentieth day, nor can be, for, indeed, it can never extend so far, unless the twelfth day happen on a Monday. The feast of the Nativity, I say, was prolonged to the twentieth day in some respects, and I might have added with some persons, because the countryman generally returned to his labours before that day; to wit, on the Monday after the twelfth day, and that it was only with the better sort, who were more at leisure, and in respect of the church service, that the feast was extended to the twentieth day. The words of Bishop Sparrow are so full to the purpose, on this point, that I shall recite them. "But when we say, that the church would have these high feasts continued so long, it is not so to be understood, as if she required an equal observance of those several days; for some of those days she commands by her canons and rubrics*, some she seems only to commend to us to be observed; some are of a higher festivity, some of Jess. The first and the last, namely the octave of the first, are usually the chief days for solemn assemblies; yet every one of those days should be spent in more than ordinary meditation of the blessings of the time, and thanksgiving for them according to that which the Lord commanded to the Jews concerning the feast of tabernacles, Lev. xxiii. 36. Upon every one of the days of that feast an offering was to be made, but the first and last were the solemn convocations." You see clearly here the original of the octaves, that it was a practice borrowed from the Jews; that the intermediate days, between the feast and its octave, were of more relaxed observation, and, consequently, that the husbandman might take to his plough on the Monday after the twelfth day, though it was within the octave of that feast; lastly, that the octave was, nevertheless, a festival to be observed by all.

I observe, lastly, that the Manifestation of our Saviour to the Gentiles, was always reckoned a part of the Christmas solemnity, according to the saying above, that ChristmasDay was not one of the twelve. We consider it at this time as such; the octave, consequently of that feast must be so too. And this is no more than proper,especially in these

Easter-Monday and Tuesday, Whit-Monday and Tuesday. + Sparrow's Rationale, P. 170.

On this day the young nien yoke themselves, and draw a plough about with music, and one or two persons, in antic dresses like jack-puddings, ga from house to house, to gather money to drink; if you refuse them, they plough up your dunghill. We call them here the Plough-Bullocks,

western parts of the world; for, as the inhabitants thereof, ourselves for example, were of the number of those Gentiles, the imparting of the Gospel to the Gentiles, was a matter of the utmost consequence to us, and so is very justly made an appendage to the festival of the nativity.

To comprise the whole in a few words; the twentieth day is the octave of the Epiphany, which festival, with its octave, was usually included in the grand festival of Christmas; the festival is apparently so now, according to every one's apprehension, and the octave, in the nature of things, and according to the usual proceedings of the liturgies in such cases, is an essential part of that festival; and, though manual labour did in truth begin before the said octave, or twentieth day, as has been shewn, yet this was always anciently reckoned a day of obligation nevertheless, and by our ancestors was constantly kept as an holy day, and that both by the labourer and the gentleman; for, though the labourer might be allowed to begin to work before, as is said, yet he was always supposed and expected to observe the octave, or the last day as is now, I think, very generally

done.

1762, Dec.

Yours, &c.

T. Row.

LV. On the Holy Places at Jerusalem.

MR. URBAN,

THERE is nothing more astonishing in all Popery than the monstrous and boundless credulity of its professors. A true son of the church of Rome believes every thing he is told by his superiors, implicitly. Thus he receives the article of transubstantiation, in contradiction to the evidence of every one of his senses that is concerned in it; he relies on the infallibility of the church, though he knows not well where to lodge it, whether in the Pope or a general council, or in both jointly; and though both Popes and councils have so often erred, have contradicted and combated one another, he swallows every modern miracle and legend, though the several tricks and artifices whereby they have been palmed upon the world have been so often laid open and detected: and the Latin Fathers resident at Jerusalem take the Holy places, as they are called, to be the real spots