394
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. xi. MAY 22, 1915.
it was finished is a variable detail which can
usually be cleared up from some other source.
In the title I have just mentioned the word
" commensales " of course includes the
whole community. The boys not on the
foundation, who came to be called simply
" commoners," were originally known as
" commensales extranoi," and are often so
styled in the early hall -books. They were
charged so much a week for meals, the sums
set against their names depending upon the
terms arranged with their parents. Thus,
in the hall -book of 3 H. IV., while one com-
moner named Chelrey (probably related to
Thomas Che!rey, Steward of the Bishop's
manors, who became one of the Founder's
executors) was charged 14c?. a week, two of
the other commoners, Lucas and Langryssh,
were paying respectively 9c?. and lOdf. It
appears from the hall-book that, during the
currency of the year which it covers, these
two boys, Lucas and Langryssh, as well as
another boy, Lamport or Langeport, who
was one of the Quiristers, changed their
status and became Scholars. Thus some
facts are supplied by the book for testing the
accuracy, at this period, of the College
Register of Scholars, a matter which I will
endeavour to deal with later. Commoners, it
may here be mentioned, occasionally went off,
leaving their commons unpaid for, and then
their names and debts began to appear
annually at the foot of the Bursars' Account
Roll. In 1467-8 there were twenty-one
such debts, amounting together to
151. 16s. 9c?., and the first of them dating
from 4 H. IV.
The precise period which any hall-book covers can often be learnt by finding out with which of the Account Rolls it squares in matters of detail. But that method is inapplicable to the book marked " H. tiij 11 3"," because the Rolls of 2-3 and 3-4 H. IV. are now missing. This is the first gap in the series of the Rolls, the earliest of which starts on Saturday, 28 March, 1394, the date, sometimes alluded to as " primus ingressus," when the community began to occupy the College buildings. The Roll of 1-2 H. IV. brings us as far as Friday, 23 Sept., 1401, and my belief is that the hall-book in question commences on the next day. Let me mention one piece of evidence in" favour of this view. Each week of the book ends with a diary recording the " jurnelli," as the daily guests were called, and the following entry forms part of the diary for the first week of the second quarter :
"Die Mercurii. Thomas Norrys et j clericus veniens secum et iiij or scolares Oxon. et pater
episcopi ad prandium cum sociia et Thomas
Atteput ad prandium cum famulis et Colsuayn
ad cenam cum sociis."
" Pater episcopi " evidently means the* father of the boy -bishop : he had come on a, Wednesday to witness his youngster's per- formance. On the basis that the hall -book commences on Saturday, 24 Sept., 1401, this particular Wednesday was 28 Dec. r Innocents' Day or Childermas, and that festival was the boy-bishop's great day at Winchester. jj. C.
Winchester College.
(To be continued.)
LONDON HOMES OF IMPEY AND
HASTINGS.
THERE are many indications of the awakening of London to the need for the preservation from something short of utter destruc- tion of many architectural and historical landmarks threatened by the stress of modern structural alterations. An attempt to save the fine old house in Great Queen Street, one of several in which Bos well once resided, has recently failed ; but beautiful Bradmore House at Hammersmith, close to the church,, has met with a happier fate. The mansion was formerly the residence of Baron Butter- wick, Earl of Mulgrave, who died there in 1646 ; in 1666 it was sold to the Feme family,, and soon after 1700 a Mr. Henry Feme Is said to have intended it for the residence of his friend Ann Oldfield, the actress, the " poor Narcissa " of Pope's well-known lines.. Dead " Narcissa " lay in state in 1730 in the Jerusalem Chamber, wrapped in "a very fine Brussels lace head, a Holland shift with tucker and double ruffles," and wearing " ar pair of new kid gloves " ; and a stone in the Abbey nave marks her resting-place. In course of time Bradmore House was pur- chased by Elijah Impey, an East India and South Sea merchant, "and here was bom in 1732 his youngest son, to become, in course of time, Sir Elijah Impey, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Calcutta, the man who condemned Nuiicomar to death, and stood loyally by Warren Hastings all through the Governor-General's difficulties with Philip Francis. Forty years after his death, Impey's memory was ruthlessly assailed by Macaulay in the course of a " literary murder," * of which Macaulay " probably thought but little when he com- mitted it." The judge died 1 Oct., 1809, and was buried in the family vault in Hammersmith Church, within a few yards-
