As a subscriber to your valuable publication, allow me to suggest that
it might, from time to time, be open to contributions explaining obscure
passages or words, which often occur in the works of mediæval writers,
and more especially in early English records. So far as English usages
and customs are concerned, the Glossary of Du Cange is of comparatively
little value to the English student; many terms, indeed, being wrongly
interpreted in all editions of that work. Take, for example, the word
"tricesima," the explanation of which is truly ridiculous; under
"berefellarii," the commentary is positively comic; and many other
instances might be cited. At the same time, it would be presumptuous to
speak otherwise than in terms of the highest respect and admiration of
Du Cange and his labours. The errors to which I allude were the natural
consequences of a foreigner's imperfect knowledge of English law and
English customs; still it is to be lamented that they should have
remained uncorrected in the later editions of the Glossary; and I take
it to be our duty to collect and publish, where feasible, materials for
an English dictionary of mediæval Latin. It is in your power materially
to advance such a work, and under that impression I venture to send the
present "Note."
In the Wardrobe Account of the 55th year of Henry the Third, it is
stated that among the valuables in the charge of the keeper of the royal
wardrobe, there was a silken purse, containing "_monetam Sancte
Helene_." It is well known that, during the middle ages, many and
various objects were supposed to possess talismanic virtues. Of this
class were the coins attributed to the mother of Constantine, the
authenticity of which is questioned by Du Cange, in his treatise "_de
Inferioris ævi numismatibus_." He observes, also, that the same name was
given, vulgarly, to almost all the coins of the Byzantine emperors, not
only to those bearing the effigies of St. Helena, but indeed to all
marked with a cross, which were commonly worn suspended from the neck as
phylacteries; "hence," he subjoins, "we find that these coins are
generally perforated." It was quite in accordance with the superstitious
character of Henry the Third that coins of St. Helena should be
preserved in his wardrobe, among numerous other amulets and relics. But
what was the peculiar virtue attributed to such coins? Du Cange, in the
same treatise, says, on the authority of "Bosius," that they were a
remedy against the "_comitialem morbum_," or epilepsy. The said
"Bosius," or rather "Bozius," wrote a ponderous work, "_de Signis
Ecclesiæ Dei_" (a copy of which, by the by, is not to be seen in the
library of the British Museum, although there are two editions of it in
the Bodleian), in which he discourseth as follows:--"Monetæ adhuc
aliquot exstant, quæ in honorem Helenæ Augustæ, et inventæ crucis, cum
hujusmodi imaginibus excusæ antiquitus fuerunt. Illis est præsens
remedium adversus morbum comitialem: et qui hodie vivit Turcarum Rex
Amurathes, quamvis a nobis alienus, vim sanctam illarum expertus solet
eas gestare; e morbo namque hujusmodi interdum laborat. Nummi quoque
Sancti Ludovici Francorum regis mirifice valent adversus nonnullos
morbos."--Lib. xv. sig. 68.
This mention of the sultan Amurath carrying these coins about his person
as a precaution against a disease to which he was subject, and indeed
the whole passage shows a belief in their efficacy was still prevalent
in the sixteenth century, when Bozius wrote. It only remains to add,
that Du Cange, in his Glossary, does not enumerate the "money of St.
Helena" under the word "moneta;" nor does he allude to the coins of St.
Louis, which, according to Bozius, were endowed with similar properties.
Having sent you a "Note," permit me to make two or three "Queries." 1.
What is the earliest known instance of the use of a beaver hat in
England? 2. What is the precise meaning of the term "pisan," so often
used, in old records, for some part of defensive armour, particularly in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? It does not bear any relation
to the fabrics of Pisa.