in our old writers, the Saxon term for persons who enjoyed land by the pious service of repairing some church or defending a sepulchre. It was likewise applied to certain persons in the diocese of Durham who held their lands by the tenure of defending the corpse of St Cuthbert.

HAM. 1. The youngest son of Noah. Having provoked the wrath of his father by an act of indecency towards him, the latter cursed him and his descendants to be slaves to his brothers and their descendants. To judge, however, from the narrative, Noah directed his curse only against Canaan (the fourth son of Ham) and his race, thus excluding from it the descendants of Ham's three other sons, Cush, Mizraim, and Phut. How that curse was accomplished is taught by the history of the Jews, by whom the Canaanites were subsequently exterminated. The general opinion is, that all the Southern nations derive their origin from Ham (to which the Hebrew root דָּרְךָ, hot, not unlike the Greek ἀδιάβροχος, lends some force). Cush is supposed to have been the progenitor of the nations of East and South Asia, more especially of South Arabia, and also of Ethiopia; Mizraim, of the African nations, including the Philistines and some other tribes which Greek fable and tradition connect with Egypt; Phut, likewise of some African nations; and Canaan, of the inhabitants of Palestine and Phoenicia. On the Arabian traditions concerning Ham, see D'Herbelot, Dictionnaire Universel.

2. A poetical name for the land of Egypt. In the Egyptian language XHMI, or KHME, signifies black. Plutarch also calls Egypt Chemia: τὴν Ἀγγίτων ἐν τοῖς μαύρησιν μελέταις οὖσαν, ἐπὶ τῷ μὲν τῶν ἀφρικῶν ἔθνων, ἐπὶ τῷ δὲ τῶν Ἀραβῶν καλουμένη.

In Gen. xiv. 5 occurs a country or place called Ham, belonging to the Zuzim, but its geographical situation is unknown.