June 11.]

ST. BARNABAS’ DAY.

On the feast of St. Barnabas it seems to have been usual to decorate some churches with garlands of flowers. Brand (1849, vol. i. 293) quotes the following disbursements from the Churchwardens’, Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, London, in the reigns of Edward IV. and Henry VII.:—

“For Rose garlondis and Woodrove garlondis on St Barnabe’s Daye, xj^d.

“Item, for two doss’ (dozen?) di bocse (box) garlands for prestes and clerkes on St. Barnabe Daye, j^s. x^d.”

Cumberland.

Hesket, an extensive parish in this county, is noted for the singular circumstance of the Court of Inglewood Forest (in the precincts of which it is wholly included) being held in it annually, on St. Barnabas’ Day, in the open air. The suitors assemble by the highway-side, at a place only marked by an ancient thorn, where the annual dues to the lord of the forest, compositions for improvements, &c., are paid; and a jury for the whole jurisdiction chosen from among the inhabitants of twenty mesne manors who attended on this spot.—Britton and Brayley, Beauties of England and Wales, 1802, vol. iii. p. 171.