Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 | Page 8

in some recent works as "a building near the
church." What authority is there for such an assertion, and do any
examples of such structures remain? What evidence is there that this
business was transacted in the churchyard, in the porch, or in any
particular part of the edifice?
Although these mysterious openings are probably, with one or two
exceptions in Normandy, peculiar to this country, it is desirable to
ascertain where the poor on the Continent usually receive such
charitable donations. In an interior of a Flemish cathedral, by an artist
of the sixteenth century, a man is represented in the act of delivering
bread to a number of eager beggars, from a sort of pew; showing, at
least, as above remarked, that some such protection was requisite.
There is another Query connected with this subject, which I beg to
submit. Some ancient frescoes were lately discovered in the chapel of
Eton College, with a compartment containing (according to a letter in
the Ecclesiologist) a bishop administering the Holy Communion to a
converted Jew, through a low window. Can any one, from recollection

or the inspection of drawings, (for the original has disappeared,) assure
me that he does not hold in his hand a piece of money, or a portion of
bread, for the supply of his bodily wants?
T.
* * * * *
Minor Queries.
North Sides of Churchyards unconsecrated.--In the West of England I
have found an opinion to prevail in rural parishes, that the north side of
our churchyards was left unconsecrated very commonly, in order that
the youth of the village might have the use of it as a playground. And,
in one parish, some few years ago, I had occasion to interrupt the game
of football in a churchyard on the "revel" Sunday, and again on another
festival. I also found some reluctance in the people to have their friends
buried north of the church.
Is there any ground for believing that our churchyards were ever thus
consecrated on the south side of the church to the exclusion of the
north?
J. SANSOM.
Hatfield--Consecration of Chapel there.--Le Neve, in his Lives of
Protestant Bishops (ii. 144.), states, that Richard Neile, Bishop of
Lincoln, went to Hatfield, 6th May, 1615, to consecrate the chapel in
the house there lately built by Robert, Earl of Salisbury. I have applied
to the Registrar of Lincoln diocese, in which Hatfield was (until
recently) locally situated, for a copy of the notarial act of consecration;
but it appears that the register of Bishop Neile was taken away or
destroyed in the Great Rebellion, and that, consequently, no record of
his episcopality now exists at Lincoln.
Le Neve says he had the most part of his account of Bishop Neile from
Thomas Baker, B.D. of St. John's College, Cambridge, who had it from
a grandson of the Bishop's. He quotes also Featley's MS. Collections.

Can any of your readers inform me whether Bishop Neile's episcopal
register for Lincoln is in existence, or whether any transcript of it is
known? or if any evidence, confirmatory of Le Neve's statement of the
fact and date of the consecration of the chapel of Hatfield, is known to
exist?
WILLIAM H. COPE.
P.S. I have examined Dr. Matthew Hutton's transcripts of the Lincoln
registers, in the Harleian MSS., but they do not come down to within a
century of Bishop Neile's episcopate.
Ulrich von Hutten (Vol. i., p. 336.).--In one of the Quarterly Reviews is
an account of Ulrich von Hutten and the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.
Will S. W. S., or any one who takes interest in Ulrich, tell me where it
is? A meagre article in the Retrospective Review, vol. v. p. 56.,
mentions only one edition of the Epstolæ, Francfurti ad Mainum, 1643.
Is there any recent edition with notes? Mine, Lond. 1710, is without,
and remarkable only for its dedication to Isaac Bickerstaffe, Esq., and
the curious mistake which Isaac made when he acknowledged it in The
Tatler, of supposing the letters genuine. Is it known to what {56}
scholar we are indebted for so neat an edition of a book then so little
known in England, and so little in accordance with English taste at that
time?
H. B. C.
University Club, May 29.
Simon of Ghent.--Can any of your correspondents give me any
information concerning Simon, Bishop of Salisbury in 1297-1315,
further than what is said of him in Godwini de Præsulibus Angliæ, and
in Wanley's Catalogue, where he is mentioned as the author of Regulæ
Sanctimonialium Ordinis Sti Jacobi? Why is he called "Gandavensis,"
or "De Gandavo," seeing that he is said to have been born in London?
J. MORTON.

Boetius' Consolations of Philosophy.--Alfred the Great translated this
work into Anglo-Saxon; Chaucer, Queen Elizabeth, and Lord Preston
into English.
Has