Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850

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In the Vision of Piers Ploughman are two remarkable passages in which mention is made of "Roberd the robber," and of "Roberdes knaves."

In a note on the second passage, Mr. Wright quotes a statute of Edw. III., in which certain malefactors are classed together "qui sont appellez Roberdesmen, Wastours, et Dragelatche:" and on the first he quotes two curious instances in which the name is applied in a similar manner,—one from a Latin song of the reign of Henry III.:

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St. Cuthbert.—The body of St. Cuthbert, as is well known, had many wanderings before it found a magnificent resting-place at Durham. Now, in an anonymous History of the Cathedral Church of Durham, without date, we have a very particular account of the defacement of the shrine of St. Cuthbert, in the reign of Henry VIII. The body was found "lying whole, uncorrupt, with his face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight's growth, with all the vestments about him as he accustomed to say mass withal." The vestments are described as being "fresh, safe, and not consumed." The visitors "commanded him to be carried into the Revestry, till the king's pleasure concerning him was further known; and upon the receipt thereof the prior and monks buried him in the ground under the place where his shrine was exalted." Now, there is a tradition of the Benedictines (of whose monastery the cathedral was part) that on the accession of Elizabeth the monks, who were apprehensive of further violence, removed the body in the night-time from the place where it had been buried to some other part of the building. This spot is known only to three persons, brothers of the order; and it is said that there are three persons who have this knowledge now, as communicated from previous generations.

But a discovery was made in 1827 of the remains of a body in the centre of the spot where the shrine stood, with various relics of a very early period and it was asserted to be the body of St. Cuthbert. This, however, has not been universally assented to, and Mr. Akerman, in his Archæological Index, has—

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