| Eddie
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| 244074. Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:14 pm |
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On a (slightly) related note I once heard an anecdote of a Cambridge undergraduate walking into an exam and demanding a pint of beer as he was wearing his sword as was requied in the college or university statute. Allegedly he was given his beer but later fined as he was not wearing his spurs as was also required.
It strikes me as a load of old cobblers but I'd be intrigued to know if there is any truth in it.
Last edited by Eddie on Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| 96aelw
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| 244075. Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:14 pm |
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| The silly name I'm not sure I swallow, though. Praise God Barbon (or Barebone, curse their inconsistent seventeenth century spelling) is fairly safely verifiable, but "If Christ Had Not Died For Thee Thou Hadst Been Damned" (or whatever form of the name one prefers, there being several different versions floating about) is fishy. For a start, there seems to be disagreement amongst those who claim the veracity of this name as to whether its bearer was Nicholas, Praise God's son, or Praise God's brother (or one of his two brothers, the other, in this version, being called "Christ Came Into The World To Save"), which is the version I was familiar with. In either case, I can find nowhere that is prepared to cite some evidence in support of the claim, and it seems that I am not alone in thinking that it whiffs not a little of a name somebody made up in order to poke fun at old Praise God and Puritan names in general. |
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| 96aelw
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| 244081. Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:25 pm |
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On the other hand, a dictionary of names of mine gives the following as a seventeenth century Sussex jury, "given as authentic by Mr Arthur Bryant in his England of Charles II":
Accepted Trevor
Redeemed Compton
Faint-not Hewitt
Standfast-on-high Stringer
Kill-sin Pimple
Be-faithful Joiner
Fly-debate Roberts
Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith White
More-fruit Fowler
Hope-for Bending
Weep-not Billing
Meek Beaver
Kill-sin Pimple is, I think particularly effective, and Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith is almost as silly a name as "Damned" Barbon's. More-fruit, I confess, somewhat baffles me, but such is Life.
On mature reflection, I think the less said about Hope-for Bending or Meek Beaver the better. |
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| Froj
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| 244083. Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:30 pm |
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96aelw: Those names are absolutely brilliant. You could be right about Hath-Not-Christ-etc: there are several different versions, and the ODNB doesn't mention it, though most other articles do. I'll have a look round and see if I can find any decent sources.
Eddie: There are several versions of this story, and I was assured by my (Oxford) tutors that none are true (though I suppose they wouldn't want us to know...) I have a book of exam regulations that I could read and find out, but it's several inches thick and I have better ways of spending my time. :) And even if I did, it might of course be true at Cambridge. I'm pretty sure it's an urban myth though.
Edit: Snopes has it down as 'unclassifiable veracity':
http://www.snopes.com/college/admin/cakesale.asp |
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| 96aelw
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| 244087. Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:35 pm |
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| Cool. The best source I've found to debunk Damned Barbon is here, if that's any use to you. I'm not entirely happy with just that and a gut instinct, to be honest, but I'm not going to hop to a library to try and do better just yet. |
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| Lumpo31
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| 244091. Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:48 pm |
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| 96aelw wrote: | | More-fruit, I confess, somewhat baffles me, but such is Life. |
More-fruit-of-the-Spirit perhaps? Love, Joy, Hope, Peace etc...
Lisa |
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| 96aelw
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| 244093. Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:57 pm |
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| Ah, good thought. It's more immediately suggestive of a plaintive request from someone who's two pineapples short of a fruit salad to my mind, but that sounds eminently plausible. |
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| Lumpo31
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| 244097. Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:03 pm |
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| 96aelw wrote: | | Ah, good thought. It's more immediately suggestive of a plaintive request from someone who's two pineapples short of a fruit salad to my mind, but that sounds eminently plausible. |
I suspect mine might be more plausible...
I feel very sad to see/hear about girls around that time (and before) named "Creature" because either they weren't expected to live, so weren't worthy of a fancy name like the boys ("More-Fruit" et al), or weren't worthy simply because because they were girls. Actually, I feel even sadder about the grown women whose names remained "Creature".
Or is all that urban myth and I should be klaxoned?
Lisa |
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| AlmondFacialBar
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| 244123. Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:38 pm |
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meek beaver should be a band...
:-)
AlmondFacialBar |
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| Froj
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| 244143. Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:44 am |
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OK, here goes:
Wikipedia identifies P-G's son as Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon.
Source: Letwin, William. The Origins of Scientific Economics. London: Routledge, 2003. p. 48
Another version, identifying Nicholas with If Jesus Christ had not died for thee thou hadst been damned Bare-bones.
Source: Wittich, John. Churches, Cathedrals and Chapels Gracewing Publishing, 1988. p. 95
This article identifies Nick as If Christ Had Not Died Thou Hadst Been Damned Nicholas Barbon.
Source: Wainwright, Nicholas. Philadelphia's Eighteenth-Century Fire Insurance Companies. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Ser., Vol. 43, No. 1 (1953), p. 47
So far, so good. However, as 96aelw pointed out, this book identifies
If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned as P-G's brother, but noting that this is according to legend and there's no proof.
Source: Manganiello, Stephen. The Concise Encyclopedia of the Revolutions and Wars of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1639 - 1660. Scarecrow Press, 2004. p. 42
This Wikipedia article (nothing's ever simple, is it?) identifies our old friend Nicky as Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon (same source as previous Wiki article). Intriguingly, however, it posits that If-Christ-had-not-died-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone is a separate person, P-G's brother. (Just imagine dinner table conversations at that house...)
Source: Stephen and Lee. Dictionary of National Biography. 1885 (no page reference)
So it's possible that P-G's brother and son had similar names on the same theme. Or, it's possible that this is all apocryphal: the earliest reference to them that I've found is 1885. He's also mentioned in a couple of other books around the same time (I've found these on Google Books but they're not available to read there, and I won't be near a decent library till the middle of January, so they'll have to stay unchecked): here, here and (most promisingly) here.
As a postscript, I'm beginning to think that if anyone deserved a name like that, it was Nicky. He went into property in a big way after the Fire of London, ignoring the restrictions that had been placed on new building, and built the first terraced houses in London. At one point, some of his builders had a fight with a group of lawyers from Gray's Inn over the legality of his development plans. One of his tricks was to demolish houses without asking the owner's permission, rebuild on the site, and face down any subsequent legal action. Unsurprisingly, he soon had a backlog of lawsuits, and kept a team of clerks and lawyers solely to slow them down by complicating court proceedings and playing his creditors against each other. He was able to claim immunity from some impending prosecutions when he became an MP. When he died, his will gave instructions that all his debts should be paid, which probably wasn't much consolation to his creditors, because he was by then insolvent. (Sourced mostly from the ODNB). |
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| Froj
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| 244370. Thu Dec 13, 2007 2:46 pm |
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| I've stuck a thread about Nicholas Barbon on the F Series board, if anyone can come up with any more on his unusual name or anything else. |
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