Royal Grants Research Articles

The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient near East

Two types of covenants occur in the Old Testament: the obligatory type reflected in the Sinai covenant and the promissory type reflected in the covenants with Abraham and David. It has been recently shown that the covenant between Yahweh and Israel was based on the treaty pattern prevalent in the ancient Near East, but no judicial prototype has been as yet found for the promissory type of the covenant. The author shows that the covenants with Abraham and with David are modelled on the so common in the ancient Near East. Gift of land and dynasty, the subjects of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants, are most prominent in the suzerain-vassal relationship. Like the royal grant in the ancient Near East so the covenants with Abraham and David are gifts bestowed upon individuals who excelled in serving loyally their masters. The terminology used in this context is very close to that used in the grants. Especially characteristic are: he kept my charge, walked before me in truth, heart was whole to his master, walked in perfection.

Thirteenth-Century Conveyancing from the Charter Rolls

The Charter Rolls of the thirteenth century are not solely concerned with Royal grants. They contain a large number of conveyances made by the King's subjects. These conveyances, or charters, owe their preservation here, as a rule, to the fact that they were submitted to the King for his inspection and confirmation. Many of them are quite complicated examples of conveyancing, replete with descriptions of the land concerned, of the estate granted, and of the services or consideration reserved by the grantor. But perhaps their most striking feature is the list of witnesses with which each charter concludes.

Three Rocky Mountain Terms: Park, Sugan, and Plaza

IN THE SHORT WORK SHEETS of The Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada (as revised for the Rocky Mountain states) there are three isoglottal terms which may serve to illustrate both sectional and intersectional diffusion. These three are park, sugan, and plaza. The first term, park, is a commonplace word in American English, usually associated with a tract of land set aside for recreation and sports. Skeat's Etymological Dictionary finds the word with early forms in English pearruc, French parc, Gaelic pairc, German pferch, and other European tongues, with a possible primitive Teutonic base. Some of the meanings in the various uses are 'an enclosure,' 'a sheepfold,' 'space surrounded by walls,' and 'a palisades to hold wild beasts.' The Oxford English Dictionary has quotations from thirteenth-century legal charters for land enclosed by royal grant or prescription and intended for keeping animals of the chase. A sixteenth-century citation in the OED refers to a wooded park: 'I542 Boorde Dyetary IV (I870) .. . A parke ... with dere & conyes is ... a plesaunt thyng to be anexed to a mansyon.' An eighteenth-century citation illustrates the same sense: '178I S. Peters History of Connecticut ... There are only two small parks of deer in Connecticut.' The extension of this term to describe a large, unfenced clearing in the mountains seems to have become American usage when explorers from the Eastern United States proceeded west along the Oregon and Santa Fe trails. The most complete discussion of the term as it is used in the earliest period and later is to be found in a paper by Albert Matthews delivered at a meeting of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts in Boston on April 28, 1904. After tracing the discovery and development of various national parks, such as Yellowstone, Sequoia, Yosemite, which were under the control of the Secretary of the Interior, and other parks supervised by the Secretary of War, Mr. Matthews remarks: 'Deserving of comment is another use of the word Park, which is peculiar to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the adjacent country. The word is there applied to a valley shut in on all sides by high hills or mountains.'2 He then documents this use of the word from the writings of

Fairs of Elizabethan England

EFORE commercial enterprise assumed its modern stationary and continuous character, internal trade in Europe was carried on intermittently at periodical fairs. The fair was in some respects similar to the market and grew up for similar reasons. Both were established by royal grants. Both, through the collection of tolls and other fees, were lucrative sources of revenue to their secular and ecclesiastical owners. Both arose under the influence of economic and environmental

Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society

IN connexion with the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society which will be held on November 30, when the medals for the year will be awarded (NATURE, November 11, p. 740), it is interesting to note that in the allotments of one hundred years ago, November 30, 1833, the Copley medal was not awarded. The Royal medals bore, for the first time, on the obverse, the effigy of King William IV, his Majesty having confirmed and continued the royal grants of George IV, his predecessor. At this anniversary meeting, however, the ten Royal medals adjudged during the lifetime of George IV were available for distribution to the original recipients, or their representatives, who were able to attend, this curious anomaly being due to the circumstance that the dies had never been completed, for reasons beyond the control of the Royal Mint. The names of the selected men of science in the different periods were: Dalton and Ivory (1826); Davy and Struve (1827); Encke and Wollaston (1828); Charles Bell and Mitscherlich (1829); Brewster and A. J. Balard (1830). Royal medals were not given in 1831 or 1832. The recipients of the Royal medals for 1833 were (1) Prof. A. de Candolle, of Geneva, for his valuable researches and investigations in vegetable physiology, as detailed in his work “Physiologic Vegetale”, and (2) Sir John F. W. Herschel for his paper “On the Investigation of the Orbits of Revolving Double Stars”, published in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society. Herschel was at the time at the Cape of Good Hope. The foregoing medals were presented by the president, H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex.

The Sheriff's Farm

A Sheriff's farm was the sum of money which he was required to pay annually at the Exchequer for his bailiwick. In virtue of this payment he was allowed to receive for his own use certain revenues paid to him in his official capacity. He was not entitled to all revenues so paid to him, but only to specific revenues; these he was said to farm. But he was not obliged to pay the whole of his farm directly to the king. In every year he would receive orders to apply portions of it in the discharge of all kinds of casual expenditure, civil, military, and domestic. He would also receive orders to apply other portions in the payment of annual salaries and fixed alms. Finally, he was allowed to make certain deductions from it for royal grants, by which the revenues farmed were diminished.

Ancient Hindu royal grant

Journal Article Ancient Hindu royal grant Get access W. E. W. E. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s5-VI, Issue 140, 2 September 1876, Page 187, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s5-VI.140.187c Published: 02 September 1876

Payments for royal grants

Journal Article Payments for royal grants Get access C. W. Bingham C. W. Bingham Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s3-X, Issue 245, 8 September 1866, Page 186, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s3-X.245.186-f Published: 08 September 1866