And Burial.

27

Vigils for the Departed, and himself read the lesson, gave the verse of the response, "Dies illa, Dies ira," laying a mournful and significant emphasis on each word, and Lauds being ended, the monks being all assembled and praying, he yielded up the spirit and was buried with becoming honour before the high altar in the Church of St. John the Evangelist. Many years afterwards,† the monks. wishing to make some repairs about the place of his interment, the stone placed over it was removed, when no appearance of corruption was found in his corpse or on his vestments."

But to return to the name, which we thus ascertain to have been Pontefract in some form or another ever since 1124 and 1139; for although during the next century it underwent some important modifications, and made some singular excursions as it were in search of further modification, the revulsion was in each case to Pontefract, with a constant tendency, though as a confessed corruption, towards the Shaks

* A hundred and eighty-one years afterwards, Thomas of Lancaster was buried "on the right-hand side" of the same high

altar.

+ Possibly on the occasion of some enlargement of the plan of the building; for the consecration of the Church and Priory by Archbishop Roger, Turstin's successor, did not take place till 1159, during the reign of Henry II., and eighteen years after Turstin's death; while the above history was probably written from 1150 to 1154, about the close of Stephen's reign. -John Bromton speaks of the interval between Turstin's death and the examination of his remains as having been two years (Cujus corpus post DUOS ANNOS incorruptum et odoriferum est compertum); while Gervase, the monk of Canterbury, also in Decem Scriptores, is even more definite; Cujus corpus post annum et menses 5 integrum & odoriferum repertum est (whose body was discovered undecayed and sweet-smelling after a year and five months), which would have been in July, 1142.

28

Fractus Pons.

perian Pomfret, in the forms Punfrit, Pomfreyt, Pountfreyt, and Pomfrait.

We have seen that in 1124 the name was Fractus Pons, a name so harsh that in that form it could hardly have become colloquial. But in 1194, when Roger de Lacy signed the charter which is even now in the possession of the Pontefract Corporation, with his seal still attached by a piece of interlaced silk (thus forming a rebus* of his newly adopted name Lacy), the two words Fractus Pons had been transposed, and the grantees under the charter are in it always described as burgens'b's meis de Ponte Fracto. The name still however remained in two words, and was inflected as two words, though each of them was written with a capital letter. But by the time that John, the second Hexham historian, wrote his history-and this was, as we have said, probably about 1154-the name had assumed a third form; and if we can in this respect trust the careful transcription of the M.S. still existing in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which Twysden has given us in Decem Scriptores, published in 1652,† the writer always uses it as one

*There is even a better rebus of the name on one of the doorways of Ledstone Church in the form of a lacework cut out in the stone. It constitutes what is called by heralds the Lacy Knot, and was the "canting "device of the family.

In his preface, Roger Twysden, after stating where he obtained his copy of each of the Ten historians, and where it might still be found, says, "Hoc interim affirmare non dubito, nos de industria ab antiquis codicibus ne unico iota vel apice rccessisse, imò eorum scripturam adeo pressè sccuti sumus, ut sêt, apud, capud, ymago, a'q' istius-modi plura contra receptam modò scribendi con

Pons fractus.

29

word, though each part of the word is inflected. Thus he speaks of Willielmum Transversum, qui ex datione regis Honori scilicet Pontifracto præsedit; and again, Turstinus, ad monachos Cluniaca professionis apud Pontemfractum profectus est; though on the other hand, in the Chronicron Johannis Bromton (same collection, col. 1028), written about 1200, the word is still printed Pons fractus, in the old form; apud Pontem fractum in bona obiit senectute (he died at Pontefract at a great age).

Here, then, were three distinct forms of the word, Fractus Pons, Pons Fractus, Ponsfractus. And out of the ablative of these last, a fourth very soou sprang. How easily, the following quotation from a letter of Ralph de Nevill to Henry III. in 1263, will show. De Nevill, writing to the King and giving him advice how best to withstand the rebel barons, continues (we quote Rymer's Fœdera, I., 429):-" Ad hoc, bonum esset, ut michi videtur, & tutum quod Castrum de Pontefracto, quod est quasi clavis in comitatu Eborum, viris potentibus esset præmunitum." From this the derivation of Pontefract is evident.

suetudinem retinuimus, & hoc ne nobis vitio vertas, qui auctores integros non à nobis reformatos tibi exhibere profitemur."-(In the meanwhile, I do not hesitate to affirm that we have not withdrawn a single jot or accent, but have even followed their writing so closely that we have retained set for sed, aput for apud, capud for caput, ymago for imago, and many of that class, spelt differently to the usual custom; and you must not consider this to be a fault in us, who profess to show you the unaltered authors, not amended by ourselves.)

30

Pontefractus.

And moreover, in 1271, eight years afterwards, when the charter of Henry de Lacy was granted, in rehearsing and confirming the previous charter of Roger, in which the town is called, as we have shown, Pons Fractus, the copy incorporated with the new charter always spells the name Pontefr', which might well pass for an abbreviation of the word in present

use.

Throughout this, and to some extent during the following century, we note a persistent effort to distinguish between the town and the castle. In public documents, written in Latin, whenever they were dated from Pontefract (and this was constantly the case in the frequent journeys of the various kings to the north), the court was invariably apud Pontem Fractum in two words, while on the other hand people wrote of "Castrum de Pontefracto" in one word. Rymer's Fodera is full of instances of these concurrent usages, and consistently enough, Knighton, who wrote about 1400, and probably copied from chroniclers who were contemporary with the circumstances they recorded, when narrating the events of 1322, states that they occurred apud Pontefractum; but when writing of those of 1140 and 1213, apud Pontemfractum. He uses both forms, each under the year when we have already shown that it specially prevailed. As we know, the Pontefractus triumphed, but all these extracts enable us to see clearly that it was the later use growing out of the former.

John Bromton.

31.

At the end of the thirteenth and during the fourteenth century, the English language was used more frequently in certain classes of documents, and in the instances we are about to give of the occurrence of the name of the town in its English form, the pronunciation had apparently been modified, a phonetic spelling of the word being introduced by people who at a distance were recording events which happened at a place of which they had no personal knowledge.* Thus, the Chronicle of Melrose, which extends to 1270, and the latter part of which was probably written almost contemporaneously with the events it records, states under 1140 that Turstin, Archbishop of York, died at the monastery of St. John the Evangelist at Punfreit. (T'stin Ebor arch' in extremo redd monast'r'o S'ci joh'is Eu'ngliste del Punfreit.-From the original in the Cottonian MSS.)

From this we learn that towards the close of the thirteenth century the name of the town was spelt Punfreit; though we quote this extract merely for what it is worth, as the Melrose Chronicle was not local. A similar orthography occurs, however, in the Chronicle of John Bromton, Abbot of Jorval, who may be considered a good authority for North Country spellings. He gives the names of those nobles who died in the year of the siege of Acre, 1192, and among them includes Robertus le Venour de Ponfret.

* We shall be able to illustrate this remark by a still more curious instance when we come to speak of the 17th century.