We could add a "Note" here and there on some points arising out of this question; but our want of definite and complete information, and of the means of gaining it (except through you), compels us to leave the subject to others, better qualified for its discussion. Pray, sir, open your pages to the question, and oblige, your ever obedient servants, PEN-AND-INK. Hill Top, May 27, 1850. * * * * * ASINORUM SEPULTURA. In former times it was the practice, upon the demise of those who died under sentence of excommunication, not merely to refuse interment to their bodies in consecrated ground, but to decline giving them any species of interment at all. The corpse was placed upon the surface of the earth, and there surrounded and covered over with stones. It was _blocked up_, "imblocatus," and this mode of disposing of dead bodies was designated "_Asinorum Sepultura._" Ducange gives more than one instance, viz., "Sepultura asini sepeliantur"--"ejusque corpus exanime asinorum accipiat sepulturam." Wherefore was this mode of disposing of the dead bodies called "an ass's sepulture?" It is not sufficient to say that the body of a human being was buried like that of a beast, for then the term would be general and not particular; neither can I imagine that Christian writers used the phrase for the purpose of repudiating the accusation preferred against them by Pagans, of worshipping an ass. (See Baronius, ad. an. 201. §21.) The dead carcasses{9} of dogs and hounds were sometimes attached to the bodies of criminals. (See Grinds, _Deutsche Rechte Alterthum_, pp. 685, 686.) I refer to this to show that there must have been some special reason for the term "_asinorum sepultura_". That reason I would wish to have explained; Ducange does not give it, he merely tells what was the practice; and the attention of Grimm, it is plain, from his explanation of the "unehrliches begräbnis" (pp. 726, 727, 728.), was not directed towards it. W.B. MACCABE. * * * * * +Minor Queries.+ _Ransom of an English Nobleman_.--At page 28. vol. ii. of the _Secret History of the Court of James I._, Edinburgh, 1811 (a reprint), occurs the following:-- "Nay, to how lowe an ebbe of honor was this our poore despicable kingdome brought, that (even in Queen Elizabeth's time, the glory of the world) a great nobleman being taken prisoner, was freely released with this farewell given him, that they desired but two mastieffes for his ransome!" Who was this great nobleman, and where may I find the fullest particulars of the whole transaction? H.C.