CURIOUS CUSTOMS AND FACTS EXPLAINED.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 109, 26 October 1878, Page 4

CURIOUS CUSTOMS AND FACTS EXPLAINED.

•Bull, on Edict op the Pora — Tho Bulla is properly the seal, either of gold, silver, or wax. On one side are the heads of St. Peter and Paul and on the other the jaarue of the Pope, and the year of his pontificate. Wabdens op the Cinqub Poets— There were originally five ports on the South Coast df England (hence the word Cinque or Jive) which being the nearest to France, were considered the key of the Kingdom. They were Dover, Hastings, Hythe, Romxaej, and Sand wick, the jurisdiction of which rested m the Barons or Wardens. Thb Dunmow Flitch op Bacon— Robert Fitz- Walter bestowed the manor of Dunmow, m 1244, on condition " that whatever married couple will go the Priory, and kneeling upon two sharp pointed stones, swear that they had not. quarrelled, nor repented of their marriage within a year and a day after "its celebration, shall hare a flitch of bacon. "The earliest recorded claim for the bacon was m the year 1445, so that for two hundred years a couple could not be found who could conscientiously make application. From that time until 1855, when the last claim was put m, only five couples presented themselves, and went through the ordeal, being about one m every eighty- five years. The last claimants previous to 1855, were John Shakeshanks, and his wife' m 1751. They mode a large sum m celling slices of the flitch to witnesses pf the ceremony, who mustered to the number of 5000. In 1855 flitches were awarded to MAandMrs Barlow, and the Chevalier Chatelaine, and his lady. The lord of the Manor opposed the revival to the custom, but Harrison Ainsworth, who has written a novel on the subject, defrayed the expense and superintended the ceremonial. |