er, it is quite clear that they were
sisters of some convent in Flanders or Holland; the name of their
spiritual father, Nicolas Wyt, and the names of the ladies, clearly
indicate this.

S.W.S.

_Daysman_ (No. 12. p. 188.)-- It seems to me that a preferable
etymology may be found to that given by Nares and Jacob. The arbiter
or judge might formerly have occupied a _dais_ or _lit de justice_, or
he might have been selected from those entitled to sit on the raised
parts of the courts of law, i.e. jurisconsulti, or barristers as we
call them. I have heard another etymology, which however I do not
favour, that the arbiter, chosen from men of the same rank as the
disputants, should be paid for loss of his day's work.

GEORGE OLIVER.

Perhaps the following may be of some use in clearing up this point.
In the _Graphic Illustrator_, a literary and antiquarian miscellany
edited by E.W. Brayley, London, 1834, at p. 14, towards the end of
an article on the Tudor Style of Architecture, signed T.M. is the
following:--

"This room (talking of the great halls in old manor-houses)
was in every manor-house a necessary appendage for holding
'the court,' the services belonging to which are equally
denominated 'the homage,' with those of the king's palace. The
_dais_, or raised part of the _upper end_ of the hall, _was
so called_, from the administration of justice. A _dais-man_
is still a popular term for an arbitrator in the North, and
_Domesday-Book_ (with the name of which I suppose every one to
be familiar) is known to be a list of manor-houses."

C.D. LAMONT.

Greenock.

[Our correspondents will probably find some confirmation of
their ingenious suggestion in the following passage from _The
Vision of Piers Ploughman_:--

"And at the day of dome
At the heighe deys sitte."

Ll. 4898-9. ed. Wright.]

_Saveguard_.--"BURIENSIS" (No. 13. p. 202.) is informed that a
_saveguard_ was an article of dress worn by women, some fifty or sixty
years ago, over the skirts of their gowns when riding on horseback,
chiefly when they sat on pillions, on a _double horse_, as it was
called.

It was a sort of outside petticoat, usually made of serge,
linsey-wolsey, or some other strong material: and its use was to
_guard_ the gown from injury by the dirt of the (then very dirty)
roads. It was succeeded by the well-known riding-habit; though I have
seen it used on a side-si