s, especially of food and money given in charity. The derivation
from O. Fr. _doel_, Late Lat. _dolium_, "grief," suggested by the custom
of funeral doles, is wrong. In early Christian days, St Chrysostom says:
"doles were used at funerals to procure the rest of the soul of the
deceased, that he might find his judge propitious." The distribution of
alms to the local poor at funerals was a universal custom in the middle
ages. The amount of doles was usually stated in the will. Thus in 1399
Eleanor, duchess of Gloucester, ordered that fifteen poor men should
carry torches at her funeral, "each having a gown and hood lined with
white, breeches of blue cloth, shoes and a shirt, and twenty pounds
amongst them." Later doles usually took the form of bequests of land or
money, the interest or rent of which was to be annually employed in
charity. Often the distribution took place at the grave of the donor.
Thus one William Robinson of Hull at his death in 1708 left money to buy
annually a dozen loaves, costing a shilling each, to be given to twelve
poor widows at his grave every Christmas. Lenten doles were also
formerly common. A will of 1537 bade a barrel of white herrings and a
case of red herrings be given yearly to the poor of Clavering, Essex, to
help them tide over the fast. One or two London doles are still
distributed, e.g. that of St Peter's, Walworth, where a Christmas dinner
is each year served to 300 parish poor in the crypt. No one under sixty
is eligible, and the dinner is unique in that it is cooked in the
church. A pilgrim's dole of bread and ale can be claimed by all
wayfarers at the Hospital of St Cross, Winchester. This is said to have
been founded by William of Wykeham. Emerson, when visiting Winchester,
claimed and received the dole. What were known as _Scrambling Doles_, so
called because the meat and bread distributed were thrown among the poor
to be scrambled for, were not uncommon in England. Such a dole existed
at St Briavel's, Gloucestershire, baskets of bread and cheese cut into
small squares being thrown by the churchwardens from the gallery into
the body of the church on Whit Sunday. At Wath near Ripon a testator in
1810 ordered that forty penny loaves should be thrown from the church
leads at midnight on every Christmas eve. The best known dole in the
United States is the "Leake Dole of Bread." John Leake, a millionaire
dying in 1792, left L1000 to Trinity Church, New York, the income to be
laid out