the reign of Edward the Confessor. How he knew this I am not aware, for there is no reference to Lombardy or Charlemagne upon the tile, though, as will presently be seen, there is a reference to Brittany. To continue: the next entries on the sherd, if I may except a long splash either of blood or red colouring matter of some sort, consist of two crosses drawn in red pigment, and probably representing Crusaders’ swords, and a rather neat monogram (‘D. V.’) in scarlet and blue, perhaps executed by that same Dorothea Vincey who wrote, or rather painted, the doggrel couplet. To the left of this, inscribed in faint blue, were the initials A. V., and after them a date, 1800.
Then came what was perhaps as curious an entry as anything upon this extraordinary relic of the past. It is executed in black letter, written over the crosses or Crusaders’ swords, and dated fourteen hundred and forty-five. As the best plan will be to allow it to speak for itself, I here give the black-letter fac-simile, together with the original Latin without the contractions, from which it will be seen that the writer was a fair mediæval Latinist. Also we discovered what is still more curious, an English version of the black-letter Latin. This, also written in black letter, we found inscribed on a second parchment that was in the coffer, apparently somewhat older in date than that on which was inscribed the mediæval Latin translation of the uncial Greek of which I shall speak presently. This I also give in full.
Fac-simile of Black-Letter Inscription on the Sherd of Amenartas.
Iſta reliq̄ia eſt valde miſticū et myrificū op̄s q̄d maiores mei ex Armorica ſſ Brittania mīore secū cōvehebāt et q̄dm ſc̄s cleric̄s ſēper p̄ri meo in manu ferebat q̄d pēitus illud deſtrueret affirmās q̄d eſſet ab ipſo ſathana cōflatū preſtigiosa et dyabolica arte q̄re p̄ter meus cōfregit illud ī duas p̄tes q̄s q̄dm ego Johs̄ de Vīceto ſalvas ſervabi et adaptavi ſicut ap̄paret die lūe p̅x poſt feſt beate Mrie virg anni gr̄e mccccxlv.
