147. _Decretorum Doctor._--Is this title given at either of our
universities? And what is its precise meaning? It not uncommonly occurs
in the documents of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that it
is not the same as Doctor of Laws may be concluded from the following
examples:--The publication of a Pope's Bull by the Bishop of London, in
the chapel of his palace in London on May 16, 1503, is stated to have
been made "Præsentibus tunc ibidem, Venerabilibus viris, Willielmo
Mors, et Johanne Younge, _Legum_, et Thoma Wodyngton, _Decretorum_,
Doctoribus, Testibus," &c. (_Rymer_, xiii. 61.) And in Wood's _Athen._,
1845 (ii. 728.), we find the same "Tho. Wodynton, decr. doctor,"
collated to the church of St Mary le Bow, on the resignation of the same
"Joh'is Yonge, LL.D." on May 3, 1514.
[Greek: Ph.]
148. _Grimsdyke or Grimesditch._--If you do not deem the following Query
too trifling for your most invaluable publication, I should be much
obliged if you would insert it, in hopes some of your antiquarian
correspondents may find something to say on the point.
From near Great Berkhampstead, Hants, to Bradenham, Bucks, about fifteen
miles (I write from memory), runs a vallum or ditch, called Grimsdyke,
Grimesditch, or the Devil's Dyke: it is of considerable boldness of
profile, being in some places twelve or fourteen feet from the crest of
the parapet to the bottom of the ditch; it keeps within two miles of the
crest of the Chiltern Hills, and is passingly mentioned in Lipscombe's
_History of Bucks_, and in the commencement of Clutterbuck's _History of
Hertfordshire_. Are there other earthworks of the same name (Grimsdyke)
in England; and what was their former use? This one in question, from
its total want of flank defence, could hardly hold an enemy in check for
long; nor does it seem to have been a military way connecting detached
forts, as, though there are earthworks (camps) on either side, it seems
to hold a tolerably straight course independent of them. And, lastly,
about the etymology of the word:--I find, in Bosworth's _Anglo-Saxon
Dictionary_, among a host of other meanings:
"GRIMA, ghost, phantom, witch, hag."
I may mention that there is the tradition about the dyke, common to most
works of the sort, that it was "done by the Devil in a night."