At your request, I send you a drawing of a horn which formerly belonged to the gild of Corpus Christi, the original founders of our college. It appears from the manuscript Historiola of the College (probably written by Jocelyn, secretary to archbishop Parker) that this horn was presented to the gild by their alderman, John Goldcorne, about the year 1347. “Johannes de Goldcorn, “quum suo tempore erat aldermannus gildae, dedit magnum cor “nu potatorium ornatum operculo cum suis appendicibus ex ar “gento deaurato, quo usi sunt ejusdem gildae fratres in festo prae “cipue Corporis Christi sane liberaliter.” See Fuller's History of the University of Cambridge, page 45; and Masters's History of Corpus Christi College, page 3. The operculum, or cover, mentioned by Jocelyn and Fuller, is since lost, though it was probably fixed by a chain to the two rings marked (a) in the drawing. The head at the extremity of the horn may probably be intended for the reigning monarch Edward the Third. On the front of the large end are the arms of the College.

The range of hills lying north by west of Bradford, separating the valleys of the rivers Wharfe and Aire, form an extremely interesting field of research. Plans and sketches have been made so as to include a sufficient extent of its more interesting features, and to point out the traces of the Brigantian tribes who once inhabited its wastes. Although these traces agree in their general character with the British earth-works already so carefully examined in the southern counties, yet they have some local peculiarities in their form, structure, and appearances, which render them worthy of attention. To thoroughly investigate them, in order to gain some little additional light (however trifling) upon the history of the brave races who, in these their mountain passes, so long resisted the disciplined troops of the Roman empire, would require much more time and patient attention than my duties during my visit to your neighbourhood allowed me to devote to them. I can therefore merely offer you a cursory view of their nature and character, in the hope that a more able mind may be led to bestow upon them that attention which the interest attached to them appears to me to merit.

In the year 1850, Cardinal Wiseman writing to Dr. Russell of Maynooth mentions an ancient crosier which had come into his possession. This is the first record of the shrine known variously as the Kells crosier or the crosier of Cúduilig and Maelfinnén, which now forms one of the most beautiful and most treasured exhibits in the British Museum collection of Irish Early Christian antiquities. In his letter the cardinal describes how he had acquired this ‘most valuable relic’ at the auction of the belongings of a solicitor in London, the crosier evidently having been left in the chambers by a previous occupant, and asks for help in deciphering the inscription. Nothing whatever is known of the earlier history of the crosier or of when it was removed from Ireland. At the request of Dr. Russell, Petrie exhibited the crosier at a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy on 14th February 1851, and read a paper on it. The shrine was at the time deposited on loan in the Academy museum. The next step in the modern history of the Kells crosier was its acquisition by the British Museum in 1859.

The site is in the parish of Playden, near Rye, Sussex, about 300 yards south-east of Mockbeggar House, and covers the top of a detached knoll which projects from the watershed between the Tillingham valley and the levels of Romney Marsh. The knoll is about 150 ft. above sea-level. No fewer than five springs rise within a short distance of the site (fig. 1).

The subsoil belongs to one of the geological formations of the Wealden series, viz., the Hastings Beds, represented at Mockbeggar by the Wadhurst Clay which contains extensive patches of sand and, in particular, pockets of a very fine white sand. One of these pockets is quite close to the site. It is of special interest that while the soil of the spur is mostly sand there is one protruding patch of hard yellow clay, and it is precisely on this patch that the prehistoric people formed their settlement.

Under the Wadhurst Clay, which here is only a few feet in thickness, there is over a hundred feet or so of sandstone forming the Ashdown Sands, well exposed at Point Hill in the parish.

A decorative scheme applied to the internal gable wall at the ‘high’ end of the hall of Oakham Castle, in Rutland, has been the subject of recent investigation, with the removal of later over-painting. Analysis indicates that the scheme is original Romanesque work dating from the 1180s, an exceptional survival for a secular building. Very unusually, the decoration was produced with self-coloured plaster rather than paint. The scheme, of which quite extensive sections survive, consisted of a large semi-circular arch with voussoirs (similar to the hall’s main stone arcade), and a lattice pattern simulating opus reticulatum in the tympanum below. The pattern was created by laying white lime strips over a buff-coloured plaster background. The only comparable example yet identified – at Chepstow Castle, in Monmouthshire – is on a smaller scale and a century earlier. The scheme seems to have survived because the interior of the hall has been little disturbed, with a tradition since the fifteenth century of displaying outsized horseshoes on the walls.

The excavated evidence of the building on the middle terrace of Site C at Tintagel Castle, in Cornwall, indicates that in the post-Roman period it had been the focus of activity involving the reuse of imported amphorae in conjunction with secondary stone stoppers made at Tintagel. This paper considers the nature of that activity and suggests that mead (fermented honey water) was being made in the building in the fifth and sixth centuries ad and stored in reused amphorae. The role of alcohol and feasting in power structures of the period and in the development of the site’s defences is also discussed.

The St Mary Magdalen chest is striking because of its carved facade and has attracted the attention of historians over the last century. There has been debate about its age, culminating in the recent suggestion that it either dates to the fourteenth century or is a later copy. This paper makes a detailed study of all the elements of the chest, constructional and decorative, and compares them with features of related medieval chests in England and Continental north-western Europe. It concludes that the chest has gone through a major reconstruction involving replaced front stiles but that it shares at least four features with chests in north Germany and Sweden dating from around 1320–30 that are not found in English chests, suggesting that it is an imported chest or was made by craftsmen working in that tradition. Numerous areas for future research into the features of English and Continental medieval chests are identified.

The medieval history of the celebrated tomb of King John at Worcester is now well known. The works of Charles Alfred Stothard at the beginning of the nineteenth century, of William St John Hope in the early years of the twentieth century, and that of Jane Martindale at the end of that century, are highlights along the road of our understanding of the royal effigy in its medieval context. But all the while this work of comprehension was going on, those who had a duty of care over the tomb were engaged in a battle to offload that responsibility. The authorities at Worcester were not alone in wondering who should carry the burden of caring for royal monuments in English cathedrals. As early as 1841, the question of the care of royal tombs in Westminster Abbey had come under Parliamentary scrutiny. The deans and chapters at Canterbury and at Gloucester also sought government subvention for the care of the royal tombs in their cathedrals. The history of this debate about the care of royal sepulchral monuments forms the wider framework for the main theme of this article, which is an examination in detail of the ways in which King John’s tomb at Worcester was treated between 1872 and 1930. It reveals a remarkable story in which a catalogue of disastrous decisions came to give us the tomb and effigy as we have them today. The article concludes with a short discussion of the introduction of the 1990 Care of Cathedrals Measure which established the structures that currently exist (with subsequent amendments) for the preservation of Anglican cathedral churches in use.

I have taken the liberty of transmitting to your Lordship the accompanying Communication. It is an Extract from a Letter sent to me by my brother, who has been on a tour in France, and the account he gives of the astonishing monument at Carnac I have presumed may be interesting, the more especially as I believe there exists no accurate description of this wonderful structure. In the recent work of Mr. Higgins on “the Celtic Druids,” we have only M. Cambry's account of it, with copies of his illustrative plates, and these are shown by the present relation to contain several errors and exaggerations.

The roof of the nave of Peterborough Cathedral (pl. xc) was erected in the latter years of the twelfth century and the ceiling was probably painted about 1220. It has frequently been stated that the ceiling was raised when the tower arch was changed from round to pointed, but there is no documentary evidence for this. If the original ceiling had been flat it would have had to have been widened by about 1 ft. 6 in. at each side to bring it to its present canted form, but there is nothing in the present condition of the painting to lead one to suppose that the roof was ever widened in this way. It has also been suggested that the ceiling was originally canted and that it has been raised by the width of the side boards which are painted in a different style from the rest of the roof, but it is difficult to believe that so great a work could have been undertaken for the sake of 20 in.

The two objects shown in the illustrations, a bronze mirror and a platter of tinned bronze, were found together at Pant Fadog, on the farm of Llechwedd Du Bach, near the road from Talsarnau to Harlech, in Merioneth, about sixty-five years ago. The farm was in the occupation of the late owner of the mirror and platter, Mr. John Lloyd; and these have been presented to the National Museum of Wales in memory of his family, the Lloyds of Cwmbychan.

The site of Le Câtel lies in the parish of Trinity in the north-east corner of Jersey, close to the village and harbour of Rozel (figs. 1 and 2). The defensive characteristics of the promontory are best appreciated from the contour plan (fig. 3). The archaeological site is located at the end of a long narrow plateau bounded on the north and east by cliffs plunging steeply to the sea and on the south by a deep valley cut by a stream flowing into Rozel bay. A subsidiary valley bites deeply into the south flank of the promontory leaving only a narrow neck of land, some 200m across, between its head and the sea cliffs on the north. This approach is barred by a massive earthwork which gives the site its name—Le Câtel.

Among the scarcest illustrations of monastic arrangement are original ground plans, such as those of Canterbury, Chester, the Charter House, and Tynemouth, with descriptions of a later date in the Rites of Durham. Next in value are inventories in detail, as in the case of Christ Church (Hants), Bridlington, and Tewkesbury; these also are extremely rare, but I have been able to add to them those of Whalley Abbey, Stanlaw, St. Martin's Newark, Dover and the Maison Dieu in the same town, Minster in the Isle of Sheppey, St. Osyth's (Essex), and St. Alban's, in the time of Edward VI.

This paper analyses the evidence relating to the heraldry used by the patriarchs of the de Bohun family (1066–1373) as preserved in seal impressions, rolls of arms, manuscripts, wills, inventories and personal objects held in private collections. It traces the development of the family’s coat of arms, as well as the adoption and use by the de Bohun earls of various heraldic symbols (such as the swan, the trefoil, the leopard and the wyvern) to serve as a reminder of the family’s glorious ancestry and its many royal and noble marital alliances. By analysing the unique heraldry adopted by each de Bohun earl, this paper concludes that the family’s noble identity evolved over several generations and that the choice of heraldic symbols by each earl was highly individual, providing a unique insight into their sense of identity and personal values, as well as their desire to ensure family memory.

The MS. exhibited this evening by the Provost and Fellows of Eton College belongs to a class of which very few now exist in this country. It consists of a collection of motets and magnificats for several voices, the music of each part being so written upon opposite pages that when the book is open the different parts can be sung by all the singers at the same time. This was the earliest method of writing part-music. It is found in the great collection of church music formerly preserved at Trent, a collection which contains numerous specimens of the English composers of the fifteenth century; it is also found in the Modena MS. (the chief source of our knowledge of John Dunstable) at Bologna, and, indeed, in all early MSS. of mensurable music. The system was even followed by the printers of the great editions of Orlando di Lasso and of Palestrina, the arrangement of the various parts being precisely the same as in those of the MS. now before us. Subsequently superseded by the use of part-books, from which each singer could sing his own part, it was not until the seventeenth century that full scores appeared; before then they are practically non-existent, even in MS. Though we know from the evidence of the Bologna, Trent, and Modena MSS., that the early school of composition of which Dunstable was the founder must have rapidly arrived at a high degree of elaboration, if not of perfection, the traces of it now to be found in this country are extremely slight. It is this fact which makes the Eton MS. so valuable, for the compositions it contains are without exception by Englishmen, several of whom, as I shall presently hope to show, were men of high reputation in their day. So rare have collections of this sort become, that I believe I am right in saying that there are now in England only two other MSS. of the kind which, for size and importance of their contents, can at all compare with the Eton volume. These are respectively preserved in the Libraries of Lambeth Palace and of Caius College, Cambridge, both dating from a little later than the Eton book.

The title which has just been read to you will shew that it is not my intention to enter into the inquiry which has been so learnedly conducted by others, into the various substances which have been used for the purposes of writing, and the times when one substance became superseded by another which was found more suitable to the purpose.