On 14th April 1426 a large manuscript illustrating the life and miracles of St. Anthony the Abbot in two hundred pictures was completed for the abbey of Saint-Antoine de Viennois in Dauphiné, the head house of the Order of Hospitallers of St. Anthony. The Order was suppressed in 1775, when it was absorbed into the Order of Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and in 1781 this manuscript was sent to the head house in Malta; it is now in the public library at Valletta and was brought to light in 1907 by the present learned librarian Mr. Hannibal P. Scicluna. I owe my knowledge of the existence of this manuscript to Mr. S. C. Cockerell who saw it at Valletta for the first time in 1926, and it was on his initiative that it was sent to the British Museum on loan, with permission to exhibit it at a meeting of this Society. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Cockerell, Sir John Shuckburgh of the Colonial Office, to the Governor-General of Malta, the Minister of Public Instruction, and above all to Dr. Scicluna on whose recommendation the loan was made for study and photography. The whole manuscript will be reproduced for the Roxburghe Club, and the privilege of editing it has been given to me.

The English Sacramentary now in the Public Library at Rouen, and known by this name, has been the subject of several inquiries into its origin, and various opinions have been put forward as to the place where, and the identity of the church for which, it was written.

No account of the hundred and fifty roof bosses in the transepts has yet been put on record in print, though they present some peculiar features. The stone vaulting in the transepts was erected under Bishop Nykke after a fire in 1509. The vaulting of the cloisters and of the nave, with their series of sculptured bosses, had already been completed, and as the Provost of Eton says, the bishop ‘was rather put to it to find a satisfactory scheme for the transept bosses. He must have decided to supplement the New Testament portion of Lyhart's work, by filling up gaps in the life of the Virgin and of Christ. But he was not fortunate in his designer, or in his clerk of works. The former had very little invention, and did not care how often he repeated his subject, whilst the latter took no pains whatever to get the bosses put up in a rational order. Nor does the execution of the carving reflect credit on any one. The whole work, in fact, gives the impression of haste and carelessness’. The repetitions are numerous; the Flight into Egypt occurs eight times ; the angel appearing to St. Joseph nine times; the Nativity three times, and there are many other repetitions. But though many of the bosses do indeed show signs of haste and carelessness there are some that are very charming little carvings.

Researches conducted during the past twenty years have definitely succeeded in establishing the sequence, both archaeological and geological, of the Boyn Hill or ‘100-foot’ terrace of the Lower Thames. The culture-stages there represented are set out hereunder in ascending order, beginning with the oldest:

(1) Clactonian 1; these specimens, many of which are striated, have been derived from some earlier deposit not yet located :

(2) Clactonian 2 and 3 :

(3) Acheulian :

(4) Early Mousterian (Levalloisian A of mid-Pleistocene times).

Excavations designed to throw light on the evolution of this castle, and to obtain a series of stratified potsherds were carried out in August, 1930, by one of us, and the results obtained were checked and extended by both of us in further excavations carried out in March, 1931. The work was necessarily limited in respect of the area examined, and in time (ten days in all), but it is hoped that the results are sufficiently suggestive for permanent record, and as indications of the lines on which further research at the castle might be undertaken. Before presenting the report of the excavations we should like to offer our thanks for the assistance we have received. To the President, owing to whose initiative the work was undertaken, we owe thanks both for facilities granted during the excavations, and for advice in the preparation of the report. The plans and photographs of Kidwelly are the work of the architectural and photographic staff of the Office of Works, to whom we are also indebted for other assistance. Prof. J. E. Lloyd has kindly supplied us with certain details about the history of the site. Mr. G. C. Dunning has contributed the valuable inventory of the English polychrome jugs, and has allowed us to use other information which is incorporated in our report. Mr. O'Neil was present during the later excavations, and assisted in the recording of the material during their progress.

Hospitality was an important feature of all religious orders and for this purpose there was generally provided accommodation for distinguished visitors, ordinary travellers, and poor people, in all the larger houses. The distinguished guest was the direct responsibility of the superior, and in all the greater Benedictine monasteries he was provided with an independent house for his own lodging and for the entertainment of such guests.

The grant of arms here reproduced was made in November 1510, by Thomas Wriothesley, Garter King of Arms, to John Mundy, described as gentleman, of Chakenden (Checkendon) in the county of Oxford. It is written on a sheet of parchment 17¾ in. by 9½ in., which has suffered somewhat from damp ; the margins are decorated, as will be seen in the illustration (pl. xliii), with a rather coarse but effective design of flowers, while the arms and crest occupy the customary position on the left hand. There are two seals, both now detached from the document, enclosed in the usual wooden cases, which are a good deal worm-eaten ; the larger seal 2½ in. diameter, is that of the Garter Office : a cross between four doves with wings expanded; on a chief a crown within a garter between a leopard and a fleur-de-lys, with the legend: . The smaller (left-hand) seal 2 in. diameter is that of Wriothesleys' own arms, quarterly I and IV, a cross and four falcons for Wriothesley, II, Fretty and a quarter with a lion passant in the quarter, for Dunstaville, III, a pale lozengy and a border bezanty, for Lushill, but the legend is indecipherable, both seals having suffered greatly from abrasion.

In addressing you, as I have the honour to do to-night, for the third time in four years, on the subject of the iconography of St. Thomas Becket, I am fully conscious of the risk I am running of becoming repetitious; but I venture to hope that, when you have heard what I have to say, you will agree that the new material which I am privileged to lay before you is of a nature which justifies my claiming your attention once more in this connexion.

Any study of British spear-heads of the Bronze Age must be inspired by, and largely based on, the very valuable pioneer work of Greenwell and Brewis, whose handsomely illustrated paper on ‘The Origin, Evolution and Classification of the Bronze Spear-head in Great Britain and Ireland’ was published in Archaeologia for 1909. Indeed, their general analysis of the subject is so masterly and their conclusions so impressive that the paper has perhaps been allowed to pass too long unchallenged. Relatively little was known, a quarter of a century ago, of the continental material, and the close connexions between Britain and the mainland in late prehistoric times were almost unsuspected. Comparative studies have revealed the widespread interchange of various products and ideas in the European Bronze Age ; and no one would now go so far as to claim, with Greenwell and Brewis, that ‘there can be no doubt whatever that the spear-head in its origin, progress, and final consummation, was an indigenous product of these islands, and was manufactured within their limits apart from any controlling influence from outside’.

Following on the Norman Conquest, large estates in Cornwall and Devon were bestowed by William on Robert of Mortain, his half-brother, and on Judhel, one of his followers. Robert of Mortain received the earldom of Cornwall and large portions of both counties, holding 248 manors in Cornwall alone. His principal seat in Cornwall was at Launceston, though he had other castles in the county, including Trematon. Judhel, afterwards called Judhel of Totnes, also received estates in both counties, and became eventually one of the richest landowners in Devon. His principal castle was at Totnes. Another family—the Cardinans—only traditionally connected with the companions of the Conqueror, are found in the twelfth century in possession of considerable lands about Restormel, and held a castle there.

The recent discoveries in the nave of Westminster Abbey will be described in detail by Mr. A. W. Clapham in the second part of this paper, and he will indicate the architectural conclusions to be drawn from them, and the relationship between the abbey church of Edward the Confessor, and the other eleventh-century abbey churches in Normandy.

In 1930 Col. C. R. R. Malone, J.P., of Trevaylor, generously placed in the custody of H.M. Office of Works the remains of an extensive Celtic village of the Romano-British period and possibly earlier. The site, commonly called Chysauster, lies upon a gentle south-western slope between the farms of Chysauster and Carnaquidden in the parish of Gulval about three miles north of Penzance and ten and a half miles from Land's End. It is in the granite area that forms the greater part of the Hundred of Pen with. The site is not fortified, but on the summit of the hill above it about 1,400 yards away is a hill-top fort called Castle-an-Dinas. This consists of three stone ramparts, and resembles very closely the neighbouring Chun Castle recently excavated by Mr. E. T. Leeds, F.S.A. Below the site is the valley of the Rosemorran stream which once yielded alluvial tin ore. The name Chysauster, though Cornish, is unfortunately of little value from the archaeological point of view, for its earliest form, which appears in a document of 1313, is Chysalvestre, Sylvester's house.

The Royal Armoury at Madrid is justly famous. But it is predominantly a Renaissance armoury, and for range and variety must yield the first place in Europe to the other Habsburg armoury at Vienna. If one wishes to trace the history of defensive armour in Spain prior to the sixteenth century one must look farther afield. Actual specimens of medieval armour are to-day as rare in Spain as in other countries, and knowledge of the earlier periods must, as elsewhere, be supplemented by the evidence of contemporary sculpture, painting, and literature.

The actual working of a medieval port is a fascinating subject for study: when the port is London, and the time the fourteenth century, the interest is increased, for this is the earliest date at which the customs administration takes definite shape. The present paper was undertaken as part of the investigations into the life and works of Chaucer carried on by Professor Manly and Professor Rickert of the University of Chicago with the aid of a grant from the General Education Board. The research into Chaucer's work as controller of customs involved the collection of material of a more general character with only an indirect bearing on the poet's life. In this paper, with Mr. Manly's generous permission, is set out an account of the site of the Woolwharf with the buildings on it, a story which affords glimpses of the officials at work on the quay, of the machinery for the collection and administration of the customs in the port of London. The object of the search being limited, the present study makes no claim to be exhaustive in its treatment, though a large number of records have been examined at both the Public Record Office and the Guildhall.

This article is in four sections. The first, by the Bishop of Gibraltar, describes his original visit to the church and the impression made upon him by its interior. The second, by Major Vivian Seymer, gives an account of the fabric and the main features of its probable history. In the third section Mr. William Buckler catalogues the frescoes, with brief notice of each, and transcribes the inscriptions on them in cases where these seem to be of special interest. Lastly, Mrs. William Buckler states reasons, based on the evidence of the three historical inscriptions, for believing that the church was probably erected in 1106 by Nicephorus, son-in-law of the emperor Alexius Comnenus and brother-in-law of Anna Comnena the historian. The plan and sections are by Major Seymer.