Notes and Queries, Number 202, September 10, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc. — John Shaqi
Notes and Queries, Number 202, September 10, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 202, September 10, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
_Spiked Maces represented in the Windows of the Abbey Church, Great
Malvern._--There is an instrument of this nature described by some
of the martyrologists under the name of "Scorpio," and figured by
Hieronymus Magius (Jerome Maggi) in his treatise _De Equuleo_. It is
there represented as a thick stick, set with iron points, and was used,
together with rods, and the plumbetæ or loaded chain scourges, to torment
the confessors.
I am inclined to think, however, that the weapons represented in the
windows at Great Malvern are intended for morning stars, which were much
employed in arming the watch in the cities of northern Europe in the
Middle Ages, and at a later period as well. This weapon (a variety of
which was called holy-water sprinkle, from the brush-like arrangement of
its spikes) had a long shaft like a halbert, and is often introduced in
paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as borne by the
Jewish guard who appear in the various scenes of Our Lord's Passion.
Of course the artists represented their characters as wearing the
dress and provided with arms of their own period; as we see the Roman
soldiers at the foot of the cross in some German and Dutch pictures, mere
portraits of the sworders and swashbucklers of the seventeenth century.
I may mention that a weapon of this coarse description is generally put
into the hands of a ruffian, or at least of some very inferior character.
In _La Mort D'Artur_, Sir Lancelot encounters on a bridge "a passing foul
churl," who disputes his passage, and "lashes at him with a great club,
full of iron pins."
I remember seeing a barbarous weapon taken from a piratical vessel, which
consisted of a massive wooden club, heavily loaded with lead, furnished
with a spike at the smaller end, and thickly studded with iron nails,
tenter hooks, and the hammers of gun locks. This was something like the
old Danish club.
W. J. BERNHARD SMITH.
Oxford.
_Ampers and (& or &)_ [Transcriber's note: Two different typefaces.]
(Vol. viii., p. 173.).--"N. & Q." has exhibited a forgetfulness, of which
he is very seldom guilty. If he and his correspondent MR. MANSFIELD
INGLEBY will refer to Vol. ii., p. 230., they will find the same question
asked by MR. M. A. LOWER and if they will turn over the leaves to p.
284., they will find an answer by Φ., which he now begs to repeat. The
word designated is _and-per-se-and_. Curiously enough, the first of the
above printed symbols seeing to have been formed from Φ.'s explanation,
that it was nothing more than a flourishing "et."
Φ.
_Its_ (Vol. viii., p. 12.).--In compliance with the request of your
correspondent B. H. C., I have the pleasure to inform him that in Richard
Burnfields _Poems_ (reprinted by James Boswell for the Roxburgh Club),
"The Complaint of Poetrie for the death of Liberalitie," 1598, is one of
the pieces, and on the first page of signature C. the word _its_ occurs,
but as a contraction of _it is_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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