the escutcheon; and his having a surname is a distinction that ought to be attended to. For in the twelfth century how few of the inferior clergy had a surname; and in the next century de was commonly inserted between the two names, of which the latter alluded to the place of birth, or to a place or object chosen for a peculiar reason. There is scarcely a list of parochial incumbents in Bridges's History of Northamptonshire that will not verify this observation, but it will be sufficient to examine that at Helmdon[1].
From 1283 to 1350 are entered nine rectors, and every one of them has de prefixed to the surname. Walter de Kancia being the first of them, I was led to search whether the second letter on the shield might not have been designed for K, but it is clearly R; and as he vacated the living in 1283, he could not have been incumbent in 1133, and not likely to have been so in 1233. To not one of the six following incumbents will the letters apply, nor to the next, William Buncke Reede, there being two christian names prefixed, and he being rector from 1409 to 1414. The twelve succeeding rectors must also be set aside; but as Mag. Will. Renalde, A.M. the twenty-ninth rector, was instituted in 1523, only ten years previous to the date I have allotted to this inscription, it so exactly tallies as to render it most probable that he was the rector who adopted this mode of informing those who came after him that they were obliged to him for this handsome decoration of their parlour-chimney. Concerning the embellishments on the other shields, termed by Dr. Wallis a flower, I have not a surmise to offer, not having met with a figure exactly similar, though this may be known to persons conversant in architectural ornaments.
By way of contrast I will recommend it to you to examine with the enclosed drawings an engraving in the Gentleman's Ma-
- ↑ Bridges's History, V. I. p 174.
