The history and antiquities of Boston, and the villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Benington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle; comprising the hundred of Skirbeck, in the county of Lincoln. Including also a history of the East, West, and Wildmore fens, and copious notices of the Holland or Haut-Huntre fen ... sketches of the geology, natural history, botany, and agriculture of the district; a very extensive collection of archaisms and provincial words, local dialect, phrases, proverbs, omens, superstitions, etc. By Pishey Thompson. Illustrated with one hundred engravings.

302 ANTIQUITIES,
to the Statute of Labourers, 12th of
Richard II. (1388), and was used for
(p 1 d's authenticating passes for servants and
labourers on their leaving their usual
place of abode."
90 \-! }(< The statute directed that each
hundred should have a seal with
the name of the county round the
edge, and that of the hundred "ex
transverso dicti sigilli." The inscription on the seal is to be read, " Sigillum comnitatus Lincolnie pro servis."l
THERE is in the vicarage - house the following escutcheon of arms finely
carved on an oak panel. This was removed from the old vicarage-house, where
it was seen by Dr. STM, LE Y, and is mentioned in his "I ~tinerary," p. 29.
This escutcheon is the subject of a
correspondence between Maurice Johnson, Esq., and Mr. Roger Gale, and
very little more is known respecting it,
anothr than that correspondence alludes to.2
The arms of Bardh ey Abbey have not
yet, we believe, been authentically ascertained, and it seems very probable
panel, ove achthat the escutcheon here depicted contains those arms. The letters which
Dr. Stukeley read as two I's are, we
think, I and H. The supposition that
attributTT these arms are those of Bardey RAbbey
li is not foundced on any known connexion
between that Abbey and Boston Church
1or town, but, in great measure, upon the
circumstance, that there is no other
nmitred abbey in this section of the
l j i iiilt~l!; } l: ",, country to which they can be assigned.' jii'l K~ ~The Abbot of Bardney owned a'iK i /i:! i ~~f~i, -i fishery at Boston in 1539. He also held
panel11q~4$hil 1, an property there at the dissolution, which
thearing wihi Ioors. Mr. i/was sold by Henry VIII. to the Corporation of Boston in 1546. The river
Extract from a letter from ALBERT WAY, Esq., vicar of Boston, and other curious gentlemen there,
of Reigate, who has for some time collected these would willingly know to whom these arms belonged.
Hundred seals. This one for Flaxiwell Hundred is LELAND'S Collectanea, FULLER, and the other few
the sixth which has fallen under Mr. WJay's notice; such books as I could have here to consult, would
another is that of Walshcroft Hundred in Lincoln- not resolve the doubt." Mr. Johnson then alludes
shire. to the gift of the advowson and parsonage-house of
2 Mr. Maurice Johnson, writing to Mr. Roger Boston to the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem and
Gale (about 1740), says, "Our friend Dr. Stukeley his successors, by Edward IV. in 1483, and supthus describes a coat-of-arms on an oaken door and poses that "the two ~'s, one on each side of the
panel, over a chimney, in the vicarage-house at escutcheon, may signify Johannis Jerusalomitani.
Boston:'In the parsonage-house is a scutcheon Between 1483 and the dissolution," adds Mr. Johnwith a pastoral staff behind it, bearing a fesse son, "the following Lord Priors occur, one of
charg'ed with a fish and two annulets, between three whose arms or devices these probably were: —Sir
plates, each charged with a cross fitchee.' But he John Weston, prior in 1433; Sir John Kendall,
attributes it to no certain person, and omits the who succeeded in 1491; Sir Thomas Dockwray, in
mitre, which is plain on both (' the door and the 1501; and Sir William Weston, who was prior at
panel'), and the motto and two -'s, which are on the dissol-.tion." Mr. Gale, in reply, says, "The
the carving within doors. Mr. Rigby, the learned coat armour of the four Lord Priors of St. John's,