licence, is clear from an entry occurring in the following year :

1286. Feb. 24. Westminster. The King appointed a commission of enquiry touching certain vagabonds in the city of York, who commit homicides and other crimes there, so that certain of the King's loyal subjects dare not leave their houses without escorts of armed men.

From other entries in the same calendar it is evident that the state of affairs described as existing in York was not confined, or peculiar, to that city in the same year and for the same reasons the King granted licences to the Dean and Chapter of S. Paul's, London, and to the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln, to similarly enclose their Cathedral Churches and their precincts, and in the following year a similar licence for the same reasons was granted to the Dean and Chapter of Wells. F. R. FAIRBANK.

LX.

THE HOSPITAL OF S. NICHOLAS, OUTSIDE YORK.

SOME interesting information concerning this Hospital occurs in "A Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward I., 12811292," issued in 1893. King Edward I. appears to have been much interested in hospitals for lepers, and in the year 1285 he issued a commission to settle the Hospital of S. Nicholas, York, and to amend the rule and discipline there, as the hospital had fallen into extreme need, through subtraction and dissipation of its goods. The commission was to Thomas de Normanvill, escheator beyond the Trent, and to John Sampson, Mayor of York. It does not appear to have effected much improvement, for in 1292 William de Hamelton, King's clerk and Archdeacon of York, had by the King's appointment made a survey of the hospital; he found it to be "in a state of decay by reason of the inept and inordinate conversation and administration of the masters and keepers thereof, and by admission of brethren and sisters against the statute and rule." And the King then issued a mandate "that the ordinance for their better

discipline, made by the said William, with the counsel of John de Lithegreyns (Justice in Eyre), John le Especer, Mayor of York, and jury of good and lawful men of the said city and parts adjacent, be inviolably observed, and that the keepers of the said hospital read the articles thereof before the brethren and sisters in their church every year on the eve of S. Nicholas the Confessor."

William de Hamelton, in the visitation and ordinance which he had made, deferred the appointment of a master to the hospital until the will of the King thereon was known. Subsequently the King ordered the Abbot of S. Mary's, York, and John de Lithegreynes to elect a suitable chaplain as master. They, with the common consent of the mayor and commonalty of the city, nominated Robert le Graunt, parson of the Church of S. Crux, York, as master; and on June 12 the King committed the hospital to his custody during pleasure, "provided that he cause the ordinance recently made by the Archdeacon in the said hospital, which was afterwards confirmed by letters patent, to be inviolably observed in every article." On the same, day the King issued a writ de intendendo to the brethren and sisters of the hospital.

Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vi. pp. 709-710, gives a list of some of the masters of this hospital, and also an "Ordinatio ejusdem per Willielmus de Gruxford, Angliæ Cancellanum," extending to 3 columns. According to Drake, the Norman Porch at S. Margaret's Church in York, which is well known for the elaborate sculpture about it, was removed from the church of this Hospital and rebuilt on its present site. In 1284 King Edward had taken the affairs of the Hospital of the Holy Innocents, for Lepers, without Lincoln, similarly in hand.

F. R. FAIRBANK.

LXI.

"OUR LADY OF DONCASTER."

AT the end of my notes on the Carmelite Priory at Doncaster, I added a few on "Our Lady of Doncaster," stating that this figure is believed to have been located in that Priory, but the evidence did not prove more than the probability of such being the case. In the report on the Kenyon MSS., issued by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, there is a curious account of a reputed miracle believed to have been performed by "Our Lady of Doncaster," which appears to set the question at rest by proving that the Priory was the place where the figure was located. This account is as follows:

Be it known to all Christyn pepull, that on the 15th day of Julii, anno Domini 1524, that oon William Nicolson, of the parish of Townsburgh, three myle from Doncaster, as the said William schuld have passed over the water of Donne at a common forde callyd Steaforth Sandes, with an yren bownd wayn, six oxen, and two horsses, looden with howshold stuff, and havyug also in his said wayn oon Robert Leche, his wyff and their two chyldren, oon chyld beyng but half a yere of age, and the other child beyng under seven yeres of age, sett his servaunte, callyd Ric. Kychyn, upon the formast horsse, and whan the draghte was past the myddes of the water, the streem and the wynde was gret, and drofe the wayn, the oxen, and the horsses down the water, and the formast horsse, which the servaunte roode upon, was drowned, and the wayn, with all the company was turned upsodown, and the whelis upwardes. Than all the company beyng therin, did call and cry to Allmighti God and to our Blessid Lady, whose ymage is honorde and worshept in the Whyte Freeres of Doncaster, by whos grace the said servaunte gate holde of an ox bele, and soo gate to land; and his master, William Nicolson, lying in the bothom of the water emonges his beasts" feete, gate holde of a beast's heed, and thrast hymself towardes the land, and so, by the grace of God, and of this good Lady of Doncaster, was savyd. Fyrst (he) dyd take hold of a willow busch, which dyd breke, callyd of our Blessed Lady, and gate hold of another and was savid. Now the said Robert Leche, his wyff and their two yong children, after that was dryfen down with the wynde and streem in the middes of the mayn water, the space of three score foote and more, to an owler busch; at the wich the said Robert, with his two yong children, by the help of God and of our good Lady, gate to land. Then, after that, the wyff of the said Robert Leche was dryuen down, with the wayn, oxen, and the horsses, the space of three hundrd foote and more, with the gret wynd and the streeme, in the myddes of the mayn water; and the wayn turned with the water three times upsodown, she beyng therein. And than all the peple beyng on the land, seyng this pituous and hevy sithte, dyd knele down upon their knees, and made thar

speciall prayers to Allmightie God and to this Blessed Lady of Doncaster that if ever she shewed any merakill, to shew some grace upon this said woman. And anoon, after the woman was cast above the water, and spake to the pepill, she beyng in the water, and said she did ritht well, for God and our Blessid Lady in Doncaster had preservyd hyr; and so, by grace of Allmighti God and of this said gracious Lady, the wayn, with the beasts and the woman, was cast towards the land, and soo was savyd, all the Christyn soules; howbeyt, there was three oxen and one horsse drowned, and three oxen and one horse savid. And that these premyeses been true and not fayned, the fornamyd William Nicolson, Robert Leche his wyff and their two yong childeren, cam to our Lady in Doncaster apon Mare Mawdleyn's day next after the date herof, and dyd declare this gracious merakill, and was swon apon a boke before the Prior and Covent with other of sufficient wyttnes of their neburs, as followeth Thomas Boswell, gentillman, Joh. Turnlay, Joh. Mapill, Robt. Newcome, with other moo; and as that day this gracious merakill was rongne and songne in the presence of 300 peple and moo. gracias.

F. R. FAIRBANK.

Deo

LXII.

THE BOUNDARY CROSSES OF PONTEFRACT.

WHEN the Pontefract water was being laid to Carleton, or rather to the Pontefract-ward outskirts of that village, and during the excavations for the pipes, a very interesting discovery was made of an old-world bouldered road. This was uncovered on the rising ground between the Railway Bridge and a "Rest and be Thankful," which was placed by the late Rev. J. Armitage Rhodes, about twothirds up the hill.

The bouldered road was clearly the "way to Carleton Cross," towards the reparation of which Robert Austwick, by will dated 7th May, 1505, bequeathed the sum of 3s. 4d., an amount by no means so insignificant in those days as it appears in the present.

The boulders of which the road was composed were of a good granulated sandstone, which had not suffered much from the erosion to which they had been subjected while being converted into boulders, and which, although their rougher surfaces had been worn down, had not assumed the oval form which they would have done had they been water-borne for a long distance at a low rate of speed. At that particular point the pathway has been

raised quite half a yard above the road, so that any foundations of the Cross, should there be such remaining, will be at a considerable depth.

The Cross itself was a boundary cross, facing Carleton, and occupying the small recess near the top of the hill in which "Rest and be Thankful" was placed about a quarter of a century ago, and which at one time was even more spacious than at present. A wayfarer seated on this seat at the end of Swan-hill flat, which is the last close in Pontefract, has Carleton before him as on a map, and a Cross at this point must have been seen to great advantage from a considerable distance to the south, east and west. But there is now no trace or vestige of it; there are no traces even of its name on any of the neighbouring plots, and its existence had been completely and entirely forgotten until my examination of Robert Austwick's will recovered its memory. Even then, however, there were but slight indications of its precise locality, and it was only after many sites had been tentatively examined and rejected as not meeting all the conditions that I was able to fix upon this position as the most likely. And then all circumstances favoured the selection. The site exactly corresponds with those of two other similar crosses, of the position of which there can be no doubt, and now this bouldered road helps to complete the testimony.

The road, at that position, moreover, illustrates in a very peculiar manner the way in which such Anglian towns as Pontefract were approached. The traveller from the south, for instance, coming to the town, having left Carleton, passed through an outlying portion of Pontefract, then again a Carleton plot, and finally entered Pontefract at what is now the Bar Terrace. And this system of having interlocking lands was probably adopted as a help in some way to the defence and security of the place, in connection with which it may be remarked, that a portion of such interlocking lands had the name of greave attached, and that in many cases the lands are so called at the present day. So leaving Pontefract at the Bar Terrace, to go southward, the traveller passed through a piece of Carleton, which extended to the left within very well-defined boundaries. He then reached Swan-hill Lane, where he passed through a similar piece of Pontefract, which had half an acre's extent to his right, though the boundaries have been (quite of recent