ART. XXVIII.—An account of the "Dormont Book" belonging to the Corporation of Carlisle. By R. S. Ferguson, F.S.A., Mayor of Carlisle.

Read at that place August 3rd, 1882.

THIS

THIS book consists of about 300 pages of thick hand laid paper, each exactly 15 inches high by 103 inches broad. The mark of a jug or pot tankard shows that the paper is Dutch, manufactured in the Low Countries, and no doubt the book came to Carlisle via Newcastle. The sheets are sewn on three bands of stout leather, each nearly an inch broad. The binding is calf, solid leather, without any stiffening of board, and has flaps to lap round the fore-edge. It has vellum end papers, pasted down on the leather, and also loose ones as well, lined with leaves from a beautiful Roman Catholic black letter service book* with illuminated initials and coloured capitals. These leaves contain the greater part of the Psalm "Diligam te Domine" (Psalm 18th). The binding is a fine specimen of, I think, English calf binding of the 16th century, hand and blind tooled, though some of the corner ornaments may once have been gilt. The tooling has been done with a stamp or tool on a wheel, differently to the tool work of earlier date, which was done by frequent repetitions of a flat stamp or tool. The book has been at some remote period hinged and strapped with three leather bands, like a modern ledger, sewn on one side of the book with flat silk cord, on the other with flat strips of vellum. The central band, now renovated, goes round the book, and clasps with a brass. hook in an oval loop. The clasp has been cut from a piece

* These books (and other objects of "superstitious use") were ordered at the Reformation to be got rid of. They were largely purchased by bookbinders, who cut them up for end papers.

of

of stamped brass, and clasp and catch and hinges and straps all give me the idea that they are the work of a saddler. This is most likely the case. "Richard Scott, a Presbyterian shopkeeper," was the local bookseller in the time of Charles II., but I expect there was no bookbinder nearer than Newcastle for a century and a half after that date. The initials W. T. occur thrice on the upper side of the book, once in an escutcheon, twice with a knot between them. They are probably the initials of the original binder; not of the Mayor of Carlisle, as in that case they would have been followed by M.C. On the top edge of the book an ornament, now almost obliterated, has been painted in black and red, and the marks made by the artist's compass legs are still to be seen. Issuing out of the back of the book are the remains of a green and white cord, to which the City Seal was once attached, for the authentication of the ancient ordinances or byelaws for the government of Carlisle contained in the volume. The book is in good condition for its age, but has been injured by damp and mice. It was repaired some twenty years ago, and wants a little attention now; one or two of the leaves should be backed, as has been done with the first leaves.*

On the first leaf of the book is a highly ornamented and floreated escutcheon of the city arms, a cross fleurie between four roses, all red,† the same with the arms on the Market Cross and the Town Hall. The second leaf is the title page, the centre of which is taken up by a gigantic T, six inches high, and five broad. The top forms a grassy plateau, where a huge raven sits on the top of a flower, while grotesque figures manoeuvre around the sable bird. The drops of the T end in red roses. Of these two leaves we give reduced fac similes.

* Since done.

The coat at present used as the arms of Carlisle is, in my belief, a timehonoured imposter, of no authority but the imagination of an ingenious mapmaker.

I have dealt with it elsewhere, ante p. 1.

The

1567

CALLED THE REGESTARIGO VERNOR ORIDORMONT BOOK OF THE COMON WELTHS OF THI NHABITANICE SIVIN THE SCIE of CAVells Rewewoedes in TheS YM OF 3 MIS ON GAZISTER 150.