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cope was in form a complete, or nearly a complete semicircle; the straight side (passing round at the back of the neck and hanging down in front on each side when worn) being richly embroidered with gold and silk, in a design which varies according to the date of the work. Not infrequently also the semicircular edge was ornamented with a narrow border of embroidery of more simple pattern. The embroidery is termed the orphreys from aurifragium. The cope was fastened across the breast with a morse or clasp often richly jewelled. Beneath the cope was worn a cassock, and over this a surplice with hanging sleeves. The chasuble, on the other hand, was worn with an alb, having tight sleeves. Over the surplice was worn an almuce or fur hood, which rested on the shoulders over the cope, and had tails or pendants, which hung down in front beneath it. In modern copes there is usually a richly embroidered hood or quasi-hood, but in mediæval copes, the hood where it exists is of very small dimensions, and the almuce, as a rule, affords a much more graceful substitute.

The body of the cope as distinct from the orphreys was of velvet, silk, or other fabric, some times plain, and at others richly embroidered in a diapered or conventional pattern, or in special cases with groups of saints and emblems. The cope now before you has a groundwork of blue velvet richly embroidered in gold and silk in a conventional floriated pattern. In a paper on English Medieval Embroidery, in the first volume of the Archæological Journal, pages 329-31, are figured several designs, similar in character, although different in detail. This portion of the cope has been cut into three strips, each about ten inches in width, and these alternately with two strips into which the richly embroidered orphrey has been divided, have been sewn together side by side.

The pattern hangs right and left from the centre, and from this mode of arrangement the work has been utterly unfitted for the purpose of an altar-cloth, or ante-pendium, although well adapted for the purpose of a pall. The size of the pall is 6 feet 10 inches by 4 feet 4 inches. There is a narrow border and intersecting line of gold tissue. This was not improbably supplied by the border of the semicircular edge of the cope, to which allusion has been made. The orphreys measure 12 feet in length by 7 inches in width. The length may appear excessive, but it

must be recollected that it had to pass round the neck, and that it sometimes reached to, and even rested on the ground. It is richly worked in gold and silk upon canvas. The embroidery is of the kind known as feather-stitch. It comprises twelve figures of saints under canopies, a design specially characteristic of the period to which I have assigned it. From the character of the costumes, and of the groining, etc., of the canopies, the work is undoubtedly Flemish.

The number twelve might lead one to infer that the Apostles were intended to be represented, but this cannot be the case, as some of the emblems which can be deciphered cannot be attributed to any Apostle. The figures so far as I can decipher them areIn the one half :

1. Male figure, habited in a long gown, belted at the waist, with long hanging sleeves and Flemish hood. No emblem.

2. Male figure with Cross Saltire. St. Andrew (to whom the mother church at Wells is dedicated).

3. Male figure standing sideways, habited in a long gown, belted at the waist and low cap. He holds a harp before him in both hands. King David.

4. Male figure, in white gown, girded at waist, over which is a large blue cloak or robe, caught up over the left arm. He holds a book in the left hand, and the right hand is raised in the attitude of blessing.

5. An aged man, bearded, head bare, nimbus. He wears a loose gown, with hanging sleeves; a book in left hand, the right slightly raised and holding a carpenter's square resting on shoulder. St. Matthew.

6. A bearded male figure, habited in a white gown, with flowing blue mantle or robe, and cape covering shoulders; high cap with gold circlet; large gold sceptre in left hand, leaning on shoulder; open book or tablets, with curved tops, like the representation of the tables of the law, in right hand. Possibly Solomon to correspond with No. 3, David, to which it is opposite, but the tablets would suggest Moses.

On the other half:

7. Youthful male figure, in loose gown, belted at waist, with open hanging sleeves; circular cap; left arm raised from elbow, and pointing forwards.

8. Young male figure, in deacon's vestments; alb, with rich apparel of gold; dalmatic and amice. (See Note.,

9. A bearded male figure, with white undergarment and large blue eastern shawl or mantle, folded closely round him and held by the right hand; circular cap.

10. A bearded male figure, side faced, in gown of fur or hair belted at waist; the legs are bare, and he is represented as stepping forward with the right leg, and with the left arm raised. St. John the Baptist.

11. Figure, in deacon's vestments, as No. 8. Emblem, the gridiron. St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr.

12. A young male figure, in gown of white and gold, belted at waist, with open hanging sleeves; right hand, or both hands, on breast.

I may perhaps remark that the name of the messenger entrusted with the bringing of the vestments from Bristol still remains in the Parish of Yatton, under a slightly altered spelling: "Beakes."

NOTE. The saints represented as Deacons are (1) St. Stephen,

emblem, Stones in hand. (2) St. Lawrence, Gridiron. (3) St. Leonard, Fetters or Chains in hand. (4) St. Vincent, Iron-spiked bed in hand or behind him, with flames beneath.

Curiosities of Parish Registers.

BY JOHN TAYLOR, BRISTOL CITY LIBRARIAN,

(Read January 26th, 1886.)

ONE point of the superior wisdom of the East in ancient time was the legislative registration of the people, a practice that was not adopted by law in England until the 16th century. In the Old Testament Scriptures there are several mentions of the genealogies of the Israelites.

Servius Tullius, in order to number the births and burials, directed that when a child was born the kindred should bring a piece of money into the Erarium of Juno Lucina; and in like manner into the treasury of Venus Libitina (where the appliances for funerals were sold) when any died. Also, among the ancient Romans, the father was obliged to enter the name of the child, within thirty days of the birth, in the public register, the birth itself being marked as on other joyful occasions, like that of marriage, by adorning the threshold of his door with flowers. Juvenal, in his ninth satire, refers to both practices in a passage that may be judiciously left unquoted. Sir Francis Palgrave states, though somewhat inaccurately, that Parish Registers were never kept in any part of the world until the 16th century. He relates that the only mode by which at the Baptistery of Florence an account was taken of the infants of the city, who were all brought there to be baptized, was by dropping beans into a bag, and casting them up at the end of the year, a practice similar in principle to that of Servius Tullius. In monastic houses, however, it was customary to keep a mortuary roll of the inmates and of benefactors to the brotherhood. Venerable Bede says, with reference to Oswald, king of the Mercians, who was killed in war with the infidels, that in "the books wherein the departure of the dead is set down" the day (6 Aug., A.D. 642) of his being

taken out of this world would be found recorded, that masses might be sung for his soul.1 But this death-roll was only part of the monastic system, and intended for the benefit, temporal or spiritual, of the fraternity; it had no reference to the advantage of the people at large.

Till the time of the Tudors there is no reason to suppose that any system, even so rough as that of numbering the people by beans, was practised in England. Mr. Burns, in his valuable History of Parish Registers, has laboriously ascertained some instances of registration before the general order of Henry VIII., in 1538, when every parish priest was required to keep a book for entering the names of all who were christened, married, and buried within his district, with the date of each event. By the Parish Register Abstract, published by Government, in 1830, it appears that of 10,984 Registers then extant, 812 begin in A.D. 1538, forty of these containing entries prior to that date. The spoliation of Parish Registers during three centuries saddens the heart of the genealogist. Parliamentary soldiers, parish clerks, churchwardens, and even the clergy themselves have in numerous instances treated these important documents as if they were of no more value than schoolboys' copy-books. At Wingfield, Cambridgeshire, the leaves of the register from 1604 to 1616 were torn out by Cromwell's troopers. The clerk of Plungar, in Leicestershire, was a utilitarian grocer, who converted the registers in his care into waste paper for his commodities. With like regard to useful purposes the early registers of the parish of Christchurch, Hants, were destroyed (so the historian of the Huntingdon Peerage says) by the curate's wife, who made them into kettleholders; but this time the parish clerk, by timely interference, saved the destruction from being complete. At Clifton, by Bristol, the registers were for years given up as lost, but were finally discovered at Clifton, in Oxfordshire. Besides much wilful wasting of these documents there has been capricious neglect to make the proper entry of names. At St. Ewe, Cornwall, the parishioners refusing to allow five shillings annually for keeping the register, the only entries were two baptisms that were generously inserted by "me, Joseph May, Clerk." At Tunstall, Kent, the clergyman, after recording, A.D. 1557, three "Mary Pottmans," got tired of that prolific family, and finally enters the name saying: 'Bede, B. iv., c. 14.

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