CHAPTERS ON CORONATIONS. No. VI. SERVICES PERFORMED AT THE CORONATION BY TENURE OF GRAND SERGEANTRY. THE COURT OF CLAIMS. "TENURE by grand serjeantry," says Littleton, "is where a man holds his lands or tenements of the sovereign by such services as he ought to do in his own person, as to carry the banner of the king, or his lance; or to lead his army, or to be his marshal, or to carry his sword before him at the coronation, or to be his sewer at his coronation, or his carver, or his butler, &c." In some curious instances we find that the duties of this tenure were allowed to be performed by deputy. Lord Coke informs us that at the coronation of King Richard II., a citizen of London who held by grand sergeantry, had a deputy appointed for him, because he was not of sufficient quality. A knight, it appears, was the lowest in rank who could do any personal service to the sovereign on such occasions. A female may appoint a deputy, but the sovereign claims the privilege of nominating the substitute for a person of tender years. : The petitions, or claims, generally assert a right of performing certain services, apparently menial, as the condition by which manors and estates are held. Such tenures are very common in feudal history, but they appear to have been derived from the Byzantine empire, where the officers of the palace usurped the chief authority of the state. In England, all lands are supposed to be held either mediately or immediately from the king; and some of the conditions on which manors were granted, will show that the tenures of grand sergeantry to which our attention must be more particularly directed, are far from being without a parallel. We shall select a few of the most singular from Blount's Fragmenta Antiquitatis. In the 19th of Henry III. Walter Gately held the manor of Westcourt in Bedington, Surrey, on the condition of yielding yearly to the king one cross-bow, value twelve pence. In the 14th of Edward III. three persons held thirty acres of land at Carleton in Norfolk, by the service of bringing the king, should he be in England, twenty-four pastres of herrings on the first coming-in of the fish. In the 34th of the same king, a man held a manor in Kent, for providing a man to lead three greyhounds whenever the king should go into Gascony, so long as a pair of shoes, valued at four pence, should last. In the 1st of Edward II., Peter Spileman held a manor on condition of finding straw for the king's bed, and hay for his horse. We find in the age of the Plantagenets many examples of such tenures. One held a manor by paying two white capons annually; another by carrying the king's standard whenever he happens to be in the county of Sussex; another by being marshal or director of the laundresses, female suttlers, and other women who may accompany the king's army: the lord of the manor of Elston, in Nottinghamshire, pays yearly a rent of one pound of cummin-seed, two pairs of gloves, and a good steel needle; another manor is held on condition of repairing the iron of the royal ploughs and harrows; and in the 13th year of Edward 1. we find the manor of Hohenorton in Warwickshire granted to Ela, countess of Warwick, on condition of her carving for the king at his birth-day feast, and taking as her fee the knife which he uses at table. We come now to the services specially rendered on the coronation; and of these the first is that of the hereditary GRAND ALMONER of England. An almoner, as his name denotes, is an officer appointed to distribute alms to the poor, and such a one was anciently attached to all monasteries; for by the ancient canons all monasteries were obliged to spend one-tenth of their income in charity. By another ancient canon every bishop was obliged to keep an almoner, and such an officer was attached to most European courts. Before the Revolution, the grand almoner of France was the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in the kingdom. To him belonged the superintendency of all hospitals and houses of lepers. The king received the sacrament from his hand, and he said mass before him in all grand ceremonies. The duty of the English grand almoner is to distribute the alms collected in a silver dish on the day of coronation, and also to divide among certain poor persons the blue cloth on which the sovereign walks from the throne in Westminster Hall to the door of the Abbey. He receives as his fee the silver dish in which the alms are collected, and also the napkin by which it is covered. John, earl of Exeter, who held the manor of Bedford at the coronation of Charles II., claimed in addition a tun of good wine, for his own proper use, which was disallowed. From the earliest ages of England, the CHIEF BUTLER has been considered one of the principal officers in attendance at the coronation feast. We learn from the Holy Scriptures that the office of chief butler was one of great importance and dignity at the court of the Pharaohs; for Joseph requested the chief butler, who was his companion in the prison, to procure his liberation, when the butler should be restored to his former place; and it was actually by his interference that Joseph was introduced to the court, and engaged to interpret the dreams of Pharaoh. The dread which the Persian kings entertained, and not without cause, of being poisoned by some of their family or servants, induced them to grant the highest honours to their chief butlers, or, as they were more generally termed, cup-bearers. It was the duty of such an officer to serve the king with wine, but he previously poured some of the liquor into the hollow of his hand, and drank it in the king's presence, as a proof that nothing pernicious had been mingled with the wine. This institution was adopted in the Byzantine empire, where the customs of oriental monarchies were strangely blended with those of imperial Rome, and from thence it passed into the different kingdoms of western Europe, but rather as a matter of state and ceremony than of any real or supposed utility. The office of arch-butler in the German empire was held by the king of Bohemia; he was bound to present the first cup of wine to the emperor, not only at the coronation-feast, but at all imperial entertainments. It was only, however, at the time of a coronation that he was compelled to wear his crown while officiating. Several prerogatives were attached to his office: he took precedence of all temporal electors; he walked in procession immediately after the emperor, the empress and the electors of Mentz and Cologne following, and he had the third voice in the electoral college. The chief butler of France (Buticularius Francia) was one of the four great officers of the household of the ancient kings of that country, who signed all the royal patents, or at least was present at the despatch of them. His seat was among the princes of the blood, and he even disputed presidency with the constable of France. He had a right of presiding at the chamber of accounts; and in the registers of that office of the year 1397, mention is made that John de Bourbon, grand butler of France, was admitted there as first president. In later times, the title was abolished, and a new office of grandechanson, or cupbearer, a merely nominal dignity, was instituted in its stead. went to enjoy the sports of the chase in one of Hugh's forests in the county of Sussex. De Albini turned the archbishop back with contumely, and seized his dogs for the trespass, upon which the prelate pronounced sentence of excommunication. The office of butler of England was granted by | archbishop of Canterbury. The cause of this excomWilliam the Conqueror to one of his companions in munication is singularly characteristic of the age. arms, William de Albini, and united by tenure of The archbishop of Canterbury claimed the right of grand sergeantry with the castle and manor of Buchen-hunting in any forest of England at his pleasure, and ham, and certain other manors in the county of Norfolk. It seems probable that this office was not one of mere state, but was connected with the collection of a duty levied by virtue of the royal prerogative on all wines imported into the country. This duty was usually called the prisage of wines, and was originally the best cask of wine before the mast, and the best cask of wine behind the mast. As, however, it soon became usual to pay a pecuniary composition instead of the wines, the levying of prisage in England was transferred to the ordinary officers of the revenue. The prisage of wines in Ireland was granted to the Fitzwalters, who thence took the name of Butler, and it was long a hereditary privilege of the earls of Ormond. The office of chief butler was transmitted to William, the second of the Albini family, a very remarkable person in his age; and as his romantic history is connected with the butlery, we shall extract it from Dugdale. It happened that the queen of France, being then a widow and a very beautiful woman, became much in love with a knight of that country, who was a comely person, and in the flower of his youth; and because that she thought that no man excelled him in valour, she caused a tournament to be proclaimed throughout her dominions, promising to reward those who should exercise themselves therein according to their respective merits, and concluding that if the person whom she so well affected, should act his part better than others in those military exercises, she might marry him, without any dishonour to herself. Hereupon divers gallant men hasting to Paris, among others came over this our William de Albini, bravely accoutred, and in the tournament excelled all others, overthrowing many, and wounding one mortally with his lance; which being observed by the queen, she became exceedingly enamoured of him, and forthwith invited him to a costly banquet; and afterwards bestowing certain jewels upon him, offered him marriage. But he, having plighted his troth to the queen of England, then a widow, refused her; whereat she grew so discontented, that she consulted with her maids how she might take away his life; and in pursuance of that design enticed him into a garden where there was a secret cave, and in it a fierce lyon, into which she descended by various steps, under colour of showing him the beast. And when she told him of his fierceness, he answered that it was a womanish and not manly quality to be afraid thereof; but having him there, by the advantage of a folding-door, thrust him in to the lyon. Being therefore in this danger, he rolled his mantle about his arm, and putting his hand into the mouth of the beast, plucked his tongue out by the root, which done, he followed the queen to her palace, and gave the tongue to one of her maids to present to her. Returning therefore into England, with the fame of this glorious exploit, he was forthwith advanced to the earldom of Arundell, and had for his arms the lyon given him; nor was it long after that the queen of England accepted him for her husband, whose name was Adeliza, widow to King Henry I., and daughter to Godfrey, duke of Lorraine, which Adeliza had the castle of Arundell and the county in dowry from that king. Absurd as this legend seems, we find it gravely repeated by several ancient historians; and the lion without a tongue appears among the armorial bearings of the Arundel family. It is of more importance to observe, that from this time the right to the chief butlery began to be connected with the earldom of Arundel, and to be gradually dissevered from the manors in Norfolk. Hugh, the last of the Albini family, at the coronation of Eleanor, queen of Henry III., exercised the right of performing the office of butler by deputy. He was himself incapacitated, for he lay under sentence of excommunication, pronounced upon him by the On the death of Hugh de Albini, his inheritance was divided between his sisters, and from the second of these the earls of Arundel are descended; they have claimed and enjoyed the office of chief butler since the reign of Edward II., but not without many ineffectual struggles on the part of the lords of the manors, with the tenure of which the office was originally connected. GRAND BUTLER AND CARVER AT A ROYAL FEAST•ff The fees claimed by the chief butler are the best gold cup and cover, with all the vessels and wine remaining below the bar on the day of coronation. The entire claim was disallowed at the coronation of have been received by the dukes of Norfolk, who Henry IV., but since that time the gold cup and cover hold the earldom of Arundel. In the engraving we have given a copy of an ancient painting, representing a king, attended by the chief butler and chief carver. The lord-mayor of London, as assistant to the chief butler, serves the sovereign with wine in a gold cup, during the coronation feast, receiving the cup with its cover as his fee. The mayor and burgesses of Oxford also assist in the butlery, receiving three maple cups as their fee. The mayor of Oxford receives in addition a gilt cup, and so does the lord of the manor of Great Wimondley in Hertfordshire, who takes the title of Chief Cup-bearer. The claims to the office of SEWER, who arranges the order of the dishes, and also the claims to the office of CARVER, are now extinct. In the reign of Richard the Second the office of carver was claimed by John of Gaunt, king of Castille and Leon, duke of Lancaster, in right of his earldom of Lincoln, and the duties were performed by his deputy, the carl of Stafford. But, at the coronation of William and Mary, the claims of John, earl of Lincoln, to this office were disallowed. The office of GRAND PANNETER, whose duty it is to preside over the pantry, and to bring from thence the salt-cellars, spoons, and knives, used by the sovereign at the coronation feast, receiving the same afterwards as his fee, was anciently held by the Beauchamps, earls of Warwick, as the tenure of the manor of Kibworth Beauchamp, in the county of Leicester. On the extinction of that family, it was granted by Elizabeth to her favourite Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, but on his dying without issue, it reverted to the crown. At the coronation of William At the coronation of William and Mary the office was claimed by William Beveridge, count of the German Empire, as lord of the manor of Kibworth Beauchamp, but the claim was disallowed. Sir William Halford, Bart., renewed the claim on the same ground at the coronation of George the Second, but was equally unsuccessful. The office of CHIEF LARDINER, whose duty it is to attend to the provisions in the royal larder on the coronation day, receiving all that remains unconsumed as his fee, is attached to the manor of Scoulton, in the county of Norfolk. At the coronation of Richard the Second the office was performed by John Fitz John, who had married the heiress of the manor. It has since been exercised by the Lords Abergavenny, though it has been sometimes counterclaimed by the Maynard family. The manor of Ashill, or Ashley, in the county of Norfolk, was held by the tenure of performing the office of NAPIER, that is, guardian of the napery or table-cloths used at the royal table. Blomefield informs us, "William de Hastyngs was steward to King Henry the First, by virtue of the serjeantry of the manor of Ashley, the service being to take charge of the nappery, namely, the table-cloths and linen, at the king's coronation." The manor subsequently passed into the Grey family; and at the coronation of Henry the Fourth, A.D. 1399, the office was executed by Lord Grey de Ruthyn, who received his fees. In 1512, Ashley, with all its manorial privileges, was sold to the Wyatt family. It was forfeited by the subsequent rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, and thus the privileges annexed to it were lost. Sir Henry Bedingfield claimed the office of Napier, as lord of the manor of Ashley, at the coronation of James the Second, as did Francis Loggin and Richard Whitborne at the coronation of George the Second; but, on inquisition, it was found that Queen Mary had granted the manor to the Bedingfields by tenure of knight's service, not grand sergeantry, and the claim was disallowed. The manor of Liston, in the county of Essex, is held by grand sergeantry, on the condition of placing five wafers, that is, thin cakes of flour, before the king, as he sits at dinner, on the coronation day. In the reign of Richard the Second this service was personally performed by Richard Lyons, a celebrated lapidary and wine merchant. This Richard Lyons was the master of the notorious Wat Tyler, and was one of the first persons beheaded by his order. The manor of Heydon, in Essex, is held by tenure of grand sergeantry, on condition of its lord holding the basin, ewer, and towel wherewith the king washes his hands before dinner on the coronation day, receiving the towel as his fee. Anciently the manor was divided into two moieties, and the lord of one held the basin, while the lord of the other presented the towel. The manor of Addington, in the county of Surrey, is held by the tenure of serving up, on the day of coronation, one mess in an earthen pot" prepared in the royal kitchen. in the royal kitchen. "Diligrout, girout or gyroun, and if seym (swine's lard) be put therein, it is called malpigemoun, or maupygemun." The origin of this tenure was, that Bartholomew de Cheney, to whom it was originally granted, appears to have been the cook in Henry the First's palace. The claim was raised so early as the reign of Henry the Second, and has been allowed at every successive coronation. Manning, in his History of Surrey, gives the following account of this ancient dish: "It was called a pottage, and consisted of almond milk, brawn of capons, sugar and spices, and chickens parboiled and chopped," thus, according to the old nursery rhyme, which probably originated in this very tenure, forming "a dainty dish to set before the king." The manor of Belsington, in Kent, is held by the service of presenting the king with three maple cups on the day of his coronation. POISON-FANGS IN SERPENTS. THE commonly-received opinion, in regard to the structure of the poison-fangs of venomous serpents communicates with the bag at its root, in which the is, that the tooth is perforated by a small hole, which poison is placed; but this is an error. The canal by which the poison is conducted to the extremity of the tooth is a deep groove, or slit, formed by a kind of folding or rolling up of the tooth: this groove is not covered with enamel like the other parts. The appearance it assumes in different species of snakes is not the same; in the Cobra de Capello the edges of the groove are rounded, while in the rattle-snake they are angular, and so closely adapted to each other as not to be easily noticed. The poison-fangs of serpents are placed on each side of the upper and lower jaws, and near their extremity; they are two in number, one on each side, and it is believed that when one is destroyed another supplies its place, but this is a fact not very clearly established. The poison itself has the appearance of oil, but in its general properties it resembles gum; its noxious qualities continue even after it is dried. From the structure of the fangs the poison is instilled into the bottom of the wound, and if in any quantity, and it enters any of the larger vessels, death speedily follows; in other cases, the wounded limb alone is affected, and the effects are gradually dissipated. But the virulence of the poison depends on several circumstances, particularly the species of the serpent, its condition at the time, and the habit of body of the animal bitten. In spite of all that has been written on the sub. ject, there appears to be no certain cure for the bite of a venomous serpent. The tongue of a serpent is forked at its extremity, and is believed by some to be poisonous; after what we have stated, it is needless to say the idea is erroneous. Fig. 1, a, is a magnified view of the poison fang of the Cobra de Capello, or Hooded Snake of the East Indies; b is a section of the same tooth. Fig. 2 represents a magnified view of the poisonfang of the rattle-snake. COMPARATIVE TABLES OF THE WEIGHTS, | England AND ON MONIES OF ACCOMPT. COMPARISON OF WEIGHTS. English Pound Avoirdupois 7,000 Pound 7,625 7,717 Kilogramme 15,434 8,656 No. equal to 100 lbs. 90.708 133.741 5,174 135.291 6,318 5... 110-785 98.577 ... 106-658 8,645 80-972 Russia Pound 7,101 6,563 Those who believe that hieroglyphics denote any distinct meaning as a written language thus have to Avoirdupois. consider, that if they existed before the time of 100.000 Moses, they were then accompanied by a more con91-803 venient mode of expression. But they did not exist till after the time of Moses, because the earliest monuments of Egyptian greatness, the Pyramids, 96-979 exhibit no hieroglyphics; and as phonetic characters did not cease to exist thenceforward, those cumbrous emblems could not have been invented for the purpose of expressing language, but were contrived for some other purpose. The result is, that they were afterwards invented by the priests for the purpose of religious mystery; which, in conferring power and wealth on that numerous body of men, coincided with the seeming policy of the state. For the productive power of the soil of Egypt, irrigated by the Nile, was such that multitudes were nourished at small expense of labour; so that had not artificial 30-480 labour been created, the well-fed, half-idle, popula tion would not have failed to turn their thoughts to politics and sedition. Huge buildings, of no other 11.60 103-448 value, were perpetually in progress to prevent this 87-272 evil, which, with the great expense of the religious and military castes, retained a very numerous popu lation in a wholesome state of subordination to the laws. IN the above table of elementary measures of length, the agreement of all Europe in referring to the human foot as a basis of measurement, is very remarkable; and not less useful than remarkable, as furnishing an approach to universal language; so that when we read of any length expressed in feet, we know it cannot err in excess beyond a seventh part, nor in defect above one-nineteenth part of English measure, proportions which approximate sufficiently to satisfy the mind for general purposes, and to produce the great advantage of not interrupting any train of thought by the necessity of extraneous reference, unless in cases which demand regular investigation and precision. As the shortest of the enumerated European measures of length estimate the human foot as exceeding eleven inches English, we may conclude that all have had their origin in the ancient Roman foot, which was to our own as eleven inches six-tenths (116); exceeding the usual length of a human foot cousiderably, and perhaps taken from the Footstep mark of a sandal or clumsy shoe. Five of these feet made the Roman pace (Passus), and one thousand paces (Mille passus, Mille passuum, Milliare) the Roman mile, about one hundred and forty-nine yards shorter than our English mile. If the practice of public buildings commenced with the granaries of Joseph, when he re-modelled the Egyptian government and people* (1700 years before Christ), and endured till the extinction of the Ptolemaic dynasty (a few years before the Christian ara), this policy seems to have been systematically maintained. From that time imperial Rome, and afterwards Constantinople, consumed the superfluous corn and other products of Egypt; a nation which has ever since been under such foreign domination as has more than sufficiently precluded superfluity among its native inhabitants. The cubit, or elbow measure, is the height of an extended middle finger, when the bent elbow rests on a flat surface; and the sacred cubit exceeds the usual measure of the actual cubit so taken. Dr. Arbuthnot's computation estimates the sacred cubit at one foot and nearly ten inches (1.9888), but Sir Isaac Newton, from the Pyramidographia of Greaves, fixes it indubitably at (1·8-628), one foot eight inches and nearly two-thirds. It is a curious fact, that while the numeration of the Romans was decimal (by tens), they always divided their unit or integer into twelve parts; so that their uncia is equally the origin of the words "ounce" and "inch," while their year, day and night, In speaking of the pace (Passus), a dangerous equally exhibit a duodecimal division; and the imi mistake has become current, in confounding it with tation of this in an after-age was carried so far, that the half-pace, or step (Gradus); while the pace is the the Norman scribes, who compiled Domesday Book, passage (Passus) of a lifted foot to its next resting-oftener than once inform us, that the Saxons reckoned place in walking. This distinction ought to be carefully observed, as considerable danger of a national blunder impends over us; books of some reputation which teach surveying, especially military sketching, having given their authority to the error. Far more ancient than the Roman foot and pace is the Scriptural Cubit, which Moses, "learned in all the learning of the Egyptians," no doubt adopted from that nation, to which has always been ascribed the origin of mensuration. Moses had also learned from them the still more useful art of expressing words by characters which denoted sounds (Phonetic 120 (twelve tens) to the 100. It is not easy to believe that the English foot (rude on the Roman ounce weight, which renders the acci as we must suppose it to be in its origin) is founded dental coincidence the more extraordinary, in that 1,000 Roman ounces (Avoirdupois ounces) of water should exactly fill a cubic foot. weights and measures appears in the foregoing tables, A modern attempt in France to alter established and has been so far successful, that it demands notice remarkable in history) in the book of Genesis, chapters XLi, and XLV. See the distinct narrative of this remarkable fact (the most LAND MEASURES, OF AREA. Square 10 English Yards. Acres. England............ Acre Acre Acre 4,840 ... 10.000 ... ... 7.809 6.173 Morgen 9,722 4.978 in this place. During the fervour of the Revolution, An attempt to improve English weights and measures took place in the years preceding 1826, when at last the legislature sanctioned the recommendation of certain persons to whom the investigation had been confided by a royal commission. They did not, indeed, alter the established long measure; but what board, what committee of inquiry can be expected to report that the inquiry has been useless, inasmuch as alteration would be injurious? The respectable corn measure of England, which dated from the time of Henry the Third (600 years since) was the victim on this occasion, and the legal bushel throughout the south of England became illegal, being superseded by a bushel increased by a thirty-second or thirty-third part, the exact difference not being easily appreciable. The negative result of the law has been, that after much expense incurred by the counties and towns which were constrained to purchase costly standard measures, these have never once been employed, the ancient bushel remaining in use universally as before; the positive result having been, that all previously acquired knowledge of the great national question of the corn laws was lost to the possessor of it and to the public, because the official returns before the year 1826 cannot now be easily compared with the returns of price, import and export since that time; and as these returns no longer represent the bushel in current use, every investigation of the corn law question is involved in a similar degree of confusion; while the new law can only be enforced in measuring commodities subject to the duties of Sweden Dessetina Fanegada Arranzada. Tunneland Joch 3,053 3,158 3,093 13,066.6 Previously to the year 800, Charlemagne established throughout his extensive empire a Pound of silver (Troy weight), dividing this Pound or Libra of silver into twenty Solidi, or shillings, each shilling into twelve denarii, Deniers or pence; a method of computation which has also been adopted in England in the time of Edward the Confessor, and afterwards in Scotland. But although the division of the libra or pound into shillings and pence remains the same in the monies of accompt, the value of the pound has become very different in proportion as it has been depreciated by the necessities or dishonesty of various governments. Thus the English pound has fallen in value to onethird (from sixty-two to twenty shillings); the Scottish pound to twenty pence, the French Livre (libra) to ten pence; the Libra of Spain differs in various provinces from twenty-seven to forty-eight pence English; and in most of the states of Italy the Lira expresses about eight pence English. The English penny has always been divided into halves and quarters, called the halfpenny and farthing (fourth-ing); and although the pound sterling has nearly superseded the Scottish pound in that ancient nation, their 100 English shilling (of the same value as the English penny) is still divided into twelfths, and in the last column of a money accompt is so denoted. The English mode of expressing our own halfpenny, farthing, and three 88-709 farthings, is not a little troublesome, as requiring 161 024 more time in writing, and more care in reading the 41285 farthing column accurately, than the more important columns which precede it. The expression of,, 17.381, is also inconvenient to the typographer, from dis25-659 turbing the interspaces of lines, and from the minute 21-725 type which is unavoidable; and it becomes worth while to consider whether such inconveniences ought 109-249 not to be superseded by simply expressing the number 86-913 of farthings, as of shillings and pence, without mark150-814 ing any denominator. Our forefathers were slow in dismissing Roman Numerals from their accompts ; 15.042 and when they adopted the Arabic notation, they 86.913 English ... ... ... ... ... 28.966 21.725 8,237 21.367 1,611 2,025 1,167 ... 108.108 League common........ 7,416 23.732 Sweden ............ Mile..... 4,635 11,700 37.972 |