factory working of the machinery of the Church in a time when the Papal supremacy had ceased to be beneficial, but as a matter of history, the appointment of these Italians was due to the English King, and not to the suggestion, still less to the authority, of the Pope."

The Italian bishops of Worcester were really the diplomatic agents of the English King at Rome, and they were chosen simply and solely because they were subtle and clever men, who were able to cope with the shifty policy of the Papacy without the least regard to their fitness for the episcopal office.

Worcester seems to have been selected for the purpose of maintaining a non-resident bishop partly because of the great number of wealthy monasteries in the diocese, whose abbots and priors would keep up the external dignity of the Church, and partly because Henry VII. seems to have desired that the episcopal government of the Welsh Marshes should cease, and that their control should vest more directly in the Crown.

The work of the diocese suffered much less under this arrangement than is commonly supposed. The functions of the bishop were divided, strictly episcopal acts being performed by suffragan bishops, while the administration of the diocese was performed by a series of extremely capable men who filled the office of vicar-general.

A list of these suffragans and vicars-general is given, but in many cases it is very difficult to identify the titles of the sees of the former. They were all bishops in partibus, and on this head the Canon's words are well worthy of notice :

"The episcopal work proper was done by suffragan bishops, who took their titles chiefly from Oriental sees. It was one of the maxims of the Church never to acknowledge any diminution of its dominion. If some parts of Christendom had fallen into the hands of unbelievers, so that Christian bishops could no longer live and labour therein, still the bishops were always in existence ready to return when occasion offered. Meanwhile, these bishops in partibus infidelium were ready to help their more fortunate brethren whose sees were undisturbed."

The stipend of these suffragans was generally provided by instituting them to some living in the diocese -e.g., Ricardus donensis Epus was appointed by the King rector of Salwarp, an arrangement not unfrequently followed at the present day.

Our space will not permit us even to glance at the events here given of the lives of the Italian bishops of Worcester, and we would only commend to our readers this new light on the history of a difficult period, and beg them to examine carefully the accounts of John Hornyhold, the receiver-general of the see in 1532, which are in themselves an important contribution to the records of the diocese. OS ❤S →S

The third coin presented a new reverse type-a double cross confined within an inner circle, and in each angle a pyramid surmounted by an annulet. The obverse type was the same as Hawkins, pl. xxi., 276. Mr. A. J. Evans read a valuable paper on Some New Artists' Signatures on Sicilian Greek Coins." In the course of the paper the author brought forward a variety of evidence to show that the received chronology of the Sicilian coin-types of the last quarter of the fifth century B.C. needed considerable revision, and that the quadriga in particular had reached a highly-advanced and even sensational stage of development as early as 415 B.C.

A discussion followed, in which Dr. H. Weber and Dr. B. V. Head took a leading part.

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At the October meeting of the Numismatic SOCIETY, Dr. J. Evans, president, in the chair, Mr. L. A. Lawrence exhibited three coins of Stephen, the first of which presented on both sides the ordinary bust of the king. The second was of the type of Henry II.'s first issue, the interest lying in the letters on the obverse, FNREX. A. On the reverse was ON. LIN, proving the coin to have been struck at Lincoln,

At the October meeting of the CAMBRIDGE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY on Monday, October 20, 1890, Professor T. McK. Hughes, F.R.S. (president), exhibited some of the stakes and pottery from a wattlehut on Loch Maree, and (for comparison) a pile and some pottery from the Lake-dwelling of Robenhausen, and also a rude earthen vessel from Hauxton, which, in the texture of the ware and the plainness of the rim, much resembled the urn from Loch Maree.

Mr. Hurrell exhibited a bronze ring, a Roman bronze coin of the fourth century A.D., a local token, and the cruciform head of a scabbard, all found recently at Newton, near Cambridge.

The Rev. H. W. P. Stevens read a paper on the history of the parish of Tadlow.

Mr. J. W. Bodger, of Peterborough, exhibited and described one gold and two silver Celtic coins, found in Peterborough in 1886, associated with bronze coins of Hadrian, Claudius, Domitian, and others, also bronze fibulæ, men and women's finger-rings, bangle, bodkin with eyelet-slit in, pottery and tiles, intermingled with bones of ox, sheep, boar, hare, etc.; bronze of Philip the Elder, struck at Alexandria, found at Castor; bronze of Constantine the Great, struck at Constantinopolis, found at Castor; silver and bronze coins from Gallienus to Constantine the Younger, found at Castor; silver coin, Antoninus Pius, found at Waternewton; silver coin, Julius Cæsar, found at Connington; one silver and seven bronze coins found at Woodstone Hill; sixteen bronze coins, from Nero to Gordianus III., including one of great beauty of Faustina the Younger, found at Sandy.

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A very large number of members of the HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB visited, on Thursday, October 23, the Norman house at the bottom of Blue Anchor Lane, Southampton, which has just been restored by Mr. W. F. G. Spranger, under the direction of Mr. T. K. Dymond.

The Hampshire Independent, in reporting the proceedings, says that special interest attaches to this almost unique example of Norman Domestic architecture, from the fact that it has just undergone a process of judicious restoration under the hands of Mr. T. K. The Dymond, an enthusiastic local antiquary. premises having come into the hands of Mr. W. F. G. Spranger, that gentleman was fortunately persuaded by Mr. Dymond to put it into better condition, and to Under preserve it as one of the sights of the town. the careful supervision of Mr. Dymond, windows

which had long been blocked up with stone were made once more to let in the light of day, damaged portions were repaired, whilst inside the unsightly whitewash was cleaned off the beams of the roof and walls. The round-headed Norman doorway in Blue Anchor Lane has also been opened. There are three two-light windows, with central shaft, from the carved capital of which spring the small semicircular arches. The southern one of the solar was nearly in a perfect state, but built up. The companion window to the north was utterly destroyed except the turnings of the arch on the head of the window. Inside, the windows open into very deep arched recesses, the rear arches of which possess a fine Norman moulding, fortunately preserved in the two windows facing the quay. The similar two-light window facing the lane probably lighted a short corridor which communicated between the great hall (the part where the ancient fireplace is, now open to the sky) and the solar or withdrawing room; the inner arch of this window is not moulded like the others. The basement under the great hall was lighted by a beautiful little window, which was quite built up. It has now been opened. The roof of this interesting building, which is of chestnut, is confidently pronounced by Mr. Dymond and other antiquaries to be the original roof, but some of the party were of opinion that it is of a later age. There is not, as Mr. T. W. Shore said, another place in England where one can see so good a specimen of Norman Domestic building. It dates from the time of Henry I., and, though the tradition that it was King John's palace is of modern origin, Mr. Shore thought it was borne out by history, and he quoted some documents in support of this. Thus, in 1207, King John ordered the royal hall in Southampton to be repaired by the bailiffs of the town. And from the itinerary of King John we learn that he visited Southampton on many different occasions from 1207 to 1215. From the Close Rolls of Henry III. it appeared that Henry, in 1222, addressed the bailiffs of Southampton, and ordered them "to repair our quay at Southampton, and to take care that our quay in front of our house suffers no harm." In 1224 the same bailiffs were ordered to repair the doors in other parts of the palace. It seemed to have remained a palace till, in 1338, the French burnt and looted Southampton. After that date it would have been deserted as a royal residence, and converted into a defensive place by the piers and arches outside, some of which come across the double Norman windows mentioned above. Mr. W. Dale mentioned that King Henry I., when he lost his son in the White Ship, himself reached Southampton in another ship, and learnt of the death of his son, possibly in this very building, in November, 1120.

The indebtedness of the Field Club, and of antiquarians generally, to Mr. Spranger and to Mr. Dy. mond for the effective way in which they had restored the Norman house was expressed by Professor Notter.

We hope that Mr. Spranger may be induced to increase the indebtedness of antiquarians to him by covering in the ancient fireplace, which is now exposed to the destructive agency of wind and weather.

S この The sixth part of the Bradford Antiquary, being the opening section of vol. ii. of the journal of the BRAD

FORD HISTORICAL AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY has reached us. It contains continuations from vol. i. of the three following papers by Mr. T. T. Empsall, "Burial Registers of Bradford Parish Church,' "Bibliography of Bradford and Neighbourhood," and "Land Tax for Bradford and District." Mr. Empsall also gives an interesting paper termed "Bradford during the Fifteenth Century." Mr. John Lister, M.A., continues the transcripts and translations of ancient charters from the Heningway MSS., and also contributes a valuable paper on the "Early History of the Woollen Trade in the Halifax and Bradford District." A few inscriptions are given at length from the "Bradford Parish Church."' The translation of the earliest local wills of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries from the York registry is also continued from the first volume. Altogether this is a strong number, and consists of fifty-six pages of closelyprinted double-columned text.

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The monthly meeting of the SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was held on October 29, when "Notes on Dr. Hunter's copy of Bourne's History of Newcastle, with a catalogue of manuscript contents,' was read by Mr. J. R. Boyle. At the same meeting, Rev. W. Featherstonhaugh exhibited a copper grave chalice in his possession from Hexham Abbey, and Mr. G. Irving exhibited an early seventeenth-century cup of laburnum wood, with silver mountings. Four plates illustrative of the recent excavation on the site of the White Friars, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, have been issued to the members to complete vol. xiii. of the Archæologia Eliana.

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No. VIII. of the Transactions of the CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION OF BRASS COLLECTORS has just been issued to members. Copies can be obtained of the hon. sec. (Mr. R. W. M. Lewis, Corpus Christi College) at Is. It is the best number that this spirited little society has issued. There are four plates. The first is to Robert Singleton and his three wives, 1472, Thornton, Bucks, the only example of a quadruple canopy. Two others are to Christopher Elcok, 1492, and Margaret Elcok, 1494, both formerly in St. Mary Magdalene's church, Bargate, Canterbury. To the disgrace of all concerned these brasses disappeared when the church was dismantled in 1871. A fourth plate represents a civilian, with gypciere and rosary, circa 1450-75, in the private possession of Mr. F. Stanley, of Margate; the owner is willing to restore it to the church from whence it came provided it can be correctly located. The remarkable correspondence between the Vicar of Godmersham and the officers of the C. U. A. B. C. is commented on in our "Notes of the Month" of this issue.

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The annual meeting of the POWYS-LAND CLUB (Montgomeryshire) was held at the Museum, Welshpool, on October 27, the Earl of Powis in the chair. The chief work in which the society has been engaged during the past year is the excavations at the abbey of Strata Marcella, which have been more than once alluded to in these columns. The Venerable Archdeacon Thomas read an interesting paper on the

small portrait brass of a vicar of Bettws-Cedewain, who died in 1531. The inscription records the building of the tower. This brass was restored to the church in 1868. The following is an Englished version of the inscription: "Pray for the Soul of Sir John ap Meredyth of Powys, formerly Vicar of this Church of Bettws: in whose time the Tower was built, and at different periods three bells were bought, and many other good works done in the said Church: The Vicar himself helping to his utmost. God be merciful to his soul. Amen. Dated in his lifetime in the year of Our Lord one thousand five hundred and thirty-one."

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An interesting lecture, entitled, "Some Legends and Ballads of the County of Berks," was given at Reading, last month, before the BERKS ARCHEOLOGICAL AND ARCHITECTURAL SOCIETY, by Mr. John A. Brain. The lecture embraced many stories connected with Reading in the olden time. The combat between Montford and the Earl of Essex on the island below Caversham Bridge; the musical competition, "Summer is y-comen in"; the story of Henry VIII. and the sick abbot; and the amusing story of Cole, the rich clothier, were passed in review; whilst the ballads relating to Archbishop Laud, the "Reading Fight," and " The Berkshire Lady," were read with great effect. This society has had the honour conferred upon it of receiving the Queen as patron, a letter to that effect, dated October 28, being received from Balmoral, by Rev. P. H. Ditchfield, hon. sec., together with a cheque for £5 as a donation to the society. The society has just attained its jubilee, having been founded originally in the year 1840 as the Berks Ashmolean Society.

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❤S もの 春の The ordinary general meeting of the ROYAL SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES of Ireland was held on November 11, at the Lecture Theatre of the Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, when the following papers were submitted: "On the Resemblance between Early Irish and Egyptian Crosses," by the Bishop of Limerick. "On the Earlier Forms of Inscribed Crosses found in Ireland," by W. F. Wakeman. "On the Figure of a small Bird, in Bronze, found in Dublin Excavations, with Remarks," and "A Con

:

On November 5 a meeting of the CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION OF BRASS COLLECTORS was held, when rubbings of the following brasses were exhibited By Mr. R. H. Russell, Trinity College : Balsham (John Blodwell, and a man in armour), Quy and Girton, Cambridgeshire; Chalfont and Chesham, Buckinghamshire; Laindon Clay, Essex; and Dartmouth, Devon. By Mr. O. Charlton, Caius College Balsham (John e Sleford), Cambridgeshire; Haccombe and Stoke-in-Teignhead, Devonshire; and Bishop Auckland, Durham. By the hon. corresponding sec. (Mr. R. W. M. Lewis, Corpus Christi College): fragments of some brasses in private possession in Norfolkshire, including some portions of the brass of Sir Hugh Hastings, at Elsing, in that county. By the hon. managing sec. (Mr. R. A. S. Macalister, St. John's College): Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire; Queen's, New, and Corpus Christi Colleges, St. Michael's and St. Mary Magdalen, Oxford; Abingdon, Oxfordshire; Willingdon, Sussex; Hitchin, Hertfordshire; Hunstanton, Snettisham, North and South Creake, Norfolkshire; and Glasgow Cathedral. A tracing from a brass formerly in Hordwell, Hants, was also exhibited. Particulars of membership in the above association, which is open to all brass-collectors without restriction, may be obtained on application to either secretary.

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The third part of this year's transactions of the SHROPSHIRE ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, recently issued to members, contains a further portion of the late Rev. J. B. Blakeway's History of Shrewsbury Hundred or Liberties; also a paper and the architect's report on the crypt of Old St. Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, recently excavated, with six sheets of illustrations and plans drawn to scale.

Amongst the finds in the crypt was a very perfect Roman stylus, of bronze, five inches in length, several coins and Nuremburg tokens, some wig curlers of pipe-clay, and a number of old bowls of tobacco pipes.

The Council have also issued to the members a further instalment of the Calendar of Lichfield Wills and Administrations.

See

Literary Gossip for Archæologists.

PROFESSOR HALBHERR, after spending six weeks in Paris examining the archaic Greek inscriptions in the Louvre, has now gone on a similar errand to Berlin, whence he will return to Rome, at the beginning of the new year, to resume at the University his lectures on Greek Epigraphy.

Dr. Theodore Reinach, director of the Revue des Etudes Grecques, has gone on an archæological mission to Turkey and Greece, in order to study on the spot various hitherto inedited monuments of Greek art.

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M. Pierre de Nolhac, master of the conferences at the School of Higher Studies at Paris, has discovered in the National Library a MS., containing an inedited copy of the Latin work of Petrarch, entitled De Viris Illustribus, which comprises thirteen biographies of ancient Eastern history and of Greek mythology. This work is different from that hitherto known by this title, and begins with an interesting introduction, in which Petrarch explains the object of his work, and the method he has followed in consulting ancient sources of information.

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The Abbé Duchesne has presented to the Paris Academy of Inscriptions a plan of the excavations conducted by him on the site of the ancient cathedral of Saint-Servan (Ille-et-Vilaine), during which he found many architectural fragments, and was enabled to reconstruct the design of that ancient church belonging to the tenth and eleventh centuries, which had this peculiarity that both ends terminated in an apse.

* * * Dr. Conrad Wernicke, of Halle, has published, in the Year-book of the German Archæological Institute, an article tending to prove that the marble head in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, hitherto thought to be a portrait of Hermarchos, is in reality that of

Plato.

* * * Padre De Cara has published in Rome his important Monograph on the Hyksos; and Professor Schiapareili, director of the Egyptian Museum of Florence, is now publishing the second part of the Book of Funereal Obsequies, the text in Hieroglyphics and the translation in Italian.

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* The Societa Laziale, 3, Piazza di Spagna, Rome, propose with the coming year to issue an Italian monthly review to be termed "Minerva," which will be edited by the Chev. F. Garlanda, professor at the University of Rome. One of the aims of the new review will be to keep its readers well posted, by means of careful summaries, abridgments, and translations, about the most important articles appearing in foreign reviews

of a like character. We propose to let our readers hear from time to time of the contents of what promises to be a valuable literary and archæological publication.

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Mr. George Clinch, of the Department of Printed Books, British Museum, and author of Bloomsbury and St. Giles, has in the press a similar history of Marylebone and St. Pancras. The illustrations will form a special feature in the book, many of them being reproduced from the Crace collection and other sources in the British Museum. The volume will be published early in December by Messrs. Truelove and Shirley.

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Those interested in corporation records will be glad to hear that our able contributor, Mr. R. C. Hope, has undertaken to arrange and prepare a descriptive index of all the documents in the archives of the Scarborough Corporation, prior to the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835.

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Messrs. Bemrose and Sons will shortly publish Devonshire Wills, a collection of abstracts of early wills proved and granted in the diocese of Exeter, arranged and annotated by Mr. Charles Worthy. The calendars at Exeter commence late in the sixteenth century, but there are many old books, some of which are still unindexed, which contain transcripts of wills of an earlier date. This book should be of value, as no previous effort has been made to print these wills.

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* * Messrs. Asher and Co., foreign booksellers, of 13, Bedford Street, Covent Garden, announce an important work, edited by Ernst Curtius and Friedrich Adler, entitled "Olympia," in which is to be com prised the results of the excavations instituted by the German Empire under official direction. The work will consist of five quarto volumes of text, four folio volumes of plates (23 inches by 17 inches), and an atlas with maps and plans in folio. Those interested in the result of these great excavations should apply for a prospectus of the work. It is expected that Volume IV., with its plates, dealing with the bronze and smaller finds, which is to be first published, will be issued before the close of the year.

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* A new series of antiquarian works is to be published by Mr. Elliot Stock, under the title of The Camer Library. Among the subjects of the earlier volumes will be The Antiquities of the Exchequer, History of the Old London Theatres, English Domestic Architecture, and a reprint of Camden's Britannia in handy form. The series will be under the general editorship of Mr. T. F. Ordish, F.S.A. Among the writers of the series are the names of the Hon. Harold Dillon, F.S.A., Mr. W. H. St. John Hope, M.A., the Rev. Dr. Cox, F.S.A., and Mr. G. L. Gomme, F.S.A.

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* Mr. J. W. Linton has ready, for subscribers only, his elaborate work on "The Masters of Wood-Engraving; a history of the art, by exhibition of the choicest works from the earliest times." His examples for