heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

34 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
many years before
the Conquest, and, as I have shown, any heraldic device
before that time was of
the simplest character.
Samuel Gale, in a paper
on "The Antient Danish
Horn kept in the
Cathedral Church of
York" (1718), says that
Ulphus was a victorious
general under Canute,
and governor of the
western part of Deira,
and that "a little after
the death of the King,
viz., 1036, the contro-
"versy arose between his sons about their sharing their father's lands,
" which induced him to make the princely donation ;
and that he confirmed
" the investiture not only by the delivery of the horn, but gave with it his
"seal also. This manner of endowing land was usual amongst the Danes,
" and specially in the time of King Canute, who gave lands at Pusey in
" Berkshire to the family of that name, with a horn solemnly at that time
" delivered as a confirmation of the grant, which, Camden saith, they held
" in his time, and as I am informed, the horn is still there to be seen."
Mr. Pegge, in a paper read at the Society of Antiquaries, Feb. 6th,
1772 (Arch&ologia, vol. iii. p. tells us
7),
that these horns were of "four
" sorts :
drinking horns, hunting horns, horns for summoning the people,
" or of a mixed kind."
The horn of Ulphus was evidently the first ; but the Pusey horn
" served both the purposes of drinking and hunting, for the dog's-head at
" the orifice or embouchure turned upon a joint, by which means' the horn
" could either be opened for blowing or shut in that part for the holding
"of liquor." So Chaucer (Frankl. Tale, v. 2809)
"Janus sits by the fire with double berde,
And drinketh of his bugle-horn the wine.",
But the horn was not only the certificate of the transfer of lands, but the
emblem of special official duties.
" " Very anciently," says Dallaway, the
" bugle-horn was chosen as a device, with an obvious reference to the office
" of Forester in fee ; and it is easily to be collected (from
the number of
"forests in
England which were extended to the depopulating whole
" provinces), in how high a degree of honour those servants of the Crown
" were held. In old romances very extraordinary effects were attributed to