Farm-related words in Sixteenth century Essex

Continuing my posts on the vocabulary of the Essex Wills and its place in English lexical history, an introduction to which can be found here.

The Essex Wills are naturally full of words for household and farm goods. The majority are words that are still used, though the things to which they are applied may now be different in design or appearance. A large majority are words, or meanings of words, that are no longer used, but are carefully recorded in dictionaries, and especially in the Oxford English Dictionary. But a significant number have escaped notice by lexicographers and yet can be found, often in large numbers, in wills, inventories, and other non-literary documents of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (and sometimes in earlier and later documents). Please note that I record the absence of terms from Early English Books Online not in order to criticize that inestimable resource but to highlight the gap between the language we find in non-literary texts and that of the printed book, especially the literary text.

grey wheat

OED’s grey adj. has been revised, but it does not seem to cover grey wheat, which occurs quite often in the Essex Wills:

1559 (VIII. 149) 2 seam white wheat and 2 seam grey wheat

1563 (I. 176) grey wheat

1567 (II.  51) grey wheat

1570 (II.  235) grey wheat

1574 (III. 128) grey wheat

1581 (X. 213) grey wheat

It is also common in later works on agriculture, including a mention by Johnson, and in recent historical discussions:

1658 G. Atwell Faithfull Surveyor [Wing A4163] vii. 132 I have seen a sack of fine seed, white wheat, sold for ten shillings a bushel, another of  grey wheat at seven, sold the same day all to one man: yet he had no more measure of the course grey, then of the fine wheat.

1666 Philos. Trans. 1665–6 1 93 There being many sorts of Wheat, as the White or Red Lammas, the bearded Kentish Wheat, the gray Wheat, the red or gray Pollard, the Ducks-bill Wheat, the red-eared-bearded Wheat. &c.

1716 J. Worlidge Compl. Syst. Husbandry & Gardening iv. 63 We find many sorts of Wheat, mentioned in our Rustick Authors, as Whole Straw Wheat, Red Straw Wheat, Rivet Wheat, white and red; Pollard Wheat, white and red, great and small; Turkey Wheat, Pur key meat, Grey Wheat, Flaxen Wheat.

1773 Johnson at Wheat, 6. Grey wheat, and in some places duck-bill wheat and grey pollard.

1834 D. Low Elem. Pract. Agric. vii. iii. 334 In the next species, Triticum turgidum, Turgid wheat, the corolla is awned, but not the calyx, the spikes are covered with soft hairs, and in some varieties change to a dark colour, and the awns drop off as the seeds become ripe; in which respects it differs from summer-wheat. It is termed with us Grey-wheat, Duck-bill-wheat, Grey Polard, Rivet, Pole-Rivet, Cone, Pendulum, &c.

1870 St Paul’s 5 340 [In 1550] White wheat of the best sort was to be sold at 13s. 4d. a quarter; white wheat of the second sort and red wheat of the best sort at l1s. a quarter; grey wheat of the best sort at 10s. a quarter; and all other descriptions at 8s.

1984 D. Hey in J. Thirsk Agrarian Hist. Eng. & Wales V. iii. 59 Barley, oats, rye, and grey wheat were grown on the better soils.

From the the 1834 quotation, which seems more reliable than some of the earlier lists, it would seem to be a variety of Triticum turgidum.

bullock, cow bullock

In the Essex Wills, cow bullock occurs at least 9 times and bullock alone at least 5 times with reference to a female bovine, e.g. 

1559 (I. 59) a bullock with a calf..the other bullock that hath no calf

1560 (I. 49) 2 bullocks that shall be milch and give milk

1589 (XI. 173) my little milch bullock

1598 (XII. 171) 5 bullocks with calves.

1559 (I. 39), 1559 (I. 64) cow bullock

1561 (I. 116) 1 cow bullock of 2 years [several]

1571 (III. 261) cow bullock

1573 (III. 100) a cow bullock of 2 years

1581 (X. 17), 1582 (X. 120), 1584 (V. 185), 1590 (XI. 64) cow bullock

Compare:

B. Trinder in T. Arkell, N. Evans, & N. Goose When Death do us Part (2000) xiv. 274 Another inventory from Moor taken in 1710 is one of several in which the word bullock appears to describe female cattle. 

English Dialect Dictionary gives bullock sb. 1, ‘horned cattle of either sex’ (although the examples imply individual ‘bovine animal’ not collective ‘cattle’) from many parts of England, and not specifically Essex.

There is no evidence of cow bullock on Early English Books Online . 

ox(en) hog

Apparently a term for a pig, but not, if 1590 is to be believed, a male pig.

1581 (X. 157) my oxen hog, my poultry, and my acorns

1590 (V. 150) 1 ox hog called a sow

[1558–65] (I. 29) oxen hog

No evidence is forthcoming from Early English Books Online, English Dialect Dictionary, or other sources.

grimble, grimbled

In the Essex Wills there are at least 7 examples of grimble, 5 applied to a cow, e.g.:

1560 (VIII. 13)  my grimble cow and my 3^rd bed

1563 (I. 179) the ‘grimbell’ cow

1563 (I. 179) the ‘grymble’ cow that hath a calf

1569 (VIII. 216) a black grimble cow

1572 (III. 88)  my young grimble cow

and one to a bullock (probably a female bovine: see bullock above):

1574 (III. 129) To my man Richard my grimble bullock.

and one applied to a cow’s face:

1583 (V. 20) 1 brown cow with a grimble face

There are 8 examples of grimbled, 3 applied to a cow, 3 to a bullock, and one to a ‘beast’:

1558 (VIII. 45) a black grimbled bullock

1559 (VIII. 10) my red grimbled bullock calf

1560 (I. 110) gryn bellide (cow)

1565 (II. 2) a red ‘gryembled’ and a dun ‘howed’ (beast)

1572 (III. 108) a red grimbled cow

1582 (IV. 143)  a grimbled bullock of 2 years

1591 (XI. 150)  my grimbled cow

1582 (X. 82) my grimbled cow

There is also one example of grindled, probably a variant:

1599 (VII. 9) a brown cow with a grindled face

The only readily traceable similar word occurs in:

1701 Fable of Cuckoo 7 As th’ Apron’d Cuckold with his grimbled Phiz’, Fondles the Todpole-Bratt, he thinks is his.

1830 Robert Forby Vocabulary of East Anglia II. 141 Grimble, v. to begrime. A dimin. Ex. ‘The child’s face is grimbled with collar.’ Grumbled in the same sense is stronger, implying a thicker coat of dirt. 

In the 1830 quotation, the word collar = collow ‘soot, smut, coal dust’. In both the animal cases and the later human ones, the location of the marking is the face. In the 1830 example it seems to be suggested that the word is related to grime. Possibly the animal name Crockyface ‘sooty-face’ (Essex Wills 1599 XII. 44) lends support to this etymology.

howed

An immensely common term in the Essex Wills relating to the appearance of cattle:

1558 (I. 4) howed wennel

1559 (I. 95) a brown ‘hoodde’ cow

1559 (I. 274) a dun ‘hewed’ bullock

1559 (I. 274) a black ‘howed’ bullock

1559 (VIII. 8) 1 brown howed cow

1559 (VIII. 10) howed cow

1559 (VIII. 15) a black howed cow

1561 (I. 43) howed cow

1561 (I. 46) howed bullock

1561 (I. 101) a brown and a black ‘howed’.

1561 (I. 116) 7 beasts..the black ‘howyde’ and the brown ‘howede’

1561 (I. 116) 6 beasts..the black ‘howyde’ and the brown ‘howede’

1563 (I. 179) the black ‘howed’ bullock

1563 (I. 220) howed cow

1565 (II. 2) 2 beasts..a red ‘howed’ and a garled

1566 (II. 44) 1 black ‘howed’ cow

1567 (II. 149) a black ‘howde’ cow

1568 (II. 61) red howed cow

1569 (VIII. 217) 1 bullock being red howed

1570 (IX. 202) my yellow howed bullock

1571 (IX. 68) the youngest cow ‘fallacke’ [perhaps error for bullock] howed

1571 (IX. 68) 1 brown cow howed

1575 (III. 357) howd cow

1581 (X. 58) red howed cow

1584 (X. 121) red howed steer

1586 (V. 303) the brown cow with a ‘howde’ face

1589 (XI. 118) red howed bullock

1590 (V. 214) 1 cow in colour red howed

1590 (XI. 95) red ‘houd’ cow

1596 (XI. 54) red howed bullock

[no date] (III. 28) howede

The word is applied to a cow 14 times, a ‘bullock’ 6 times, a ‘beast’ 3 times, a wennel once. The following forms occur: howed (which may show spelling normalized by the Editor in some cases) 17 times (of which 5 are shown by quote marks to be the actual spelling); howd once, howde twice, howede three times, howyde twice, hewed (apparently the actual spelling) once, and hoodde once. Brown, black, dun, ‘red’, and ‘yellow’ beasts can all be howed, which suggests a marking, contrasted in one case with garled, which means ‘spotted, speckled’ (OED garled adj.) A beast’s face can be howed (as it can be grimbled). 

Also, garled, grimbled, and howed can all be combined with colour terms:

1558 (I. 252) red garled weaning pig

1559 (I. 204) her calf black garled

1558 (I. 65) black ‘howed’

1559 (I. 71) black ‘howed’

1560 (I. 301) brown-hued

1582 (X. 81) black garled

1589 (XI. 118) black howed

1592 (XI. 211) brown howed

1593 (XI. 170) black grimbled

1593 (XI. 241) black howed

1594 (XI. 214) dun howed

1591 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 252 a white garled cow

Two examples (earlier, and also from eastern England) have been found outside EW (no evidence on EEBO):

1510 Duchy of Cornwall Record Office. Court Rolls. Hertfordshire. Hemel Hempstead Court Book 1418-1529.  (Court of John Rector of Asshrugg held there 21st day of January in the first year of the reign of Henry VIII) folio 75r, Item they say that William How of Pykes has died since the last court who held of the lord certain land and tenements and there falls due to the lord after his death one cow coloured red brown howed price 6s 8d in the name of a heriott. 

1530 Will of Robt. Rande 7 Dec. in E. Hailstone Hist. & Antiq. Parish Bottisham in Cambs. (Camb. Antiquarian Soc.) (1873) App. II. 146 To my son Joh’. a young Howed cow, and 6 shepe. (This is explained by the editor as ‘? = Housed’.)

A possible etymon is houve | hoove n. ‘a covering for the head,..a coif, a cap’, which itself occurs in Essex Wills:

1589 (XI. 184) my ‘houve’ and my best hat.

The likelihood of this is suggested by the use of howe as a name for a cow in the Essex Wills:

1571 (IX. 112) Northern Welman, Brown Howe, Brown Harvie and old Brown Wealde

A form ho(u)we is recorded in Chaucer MSS and a form howe in Promptorium Parvulorum, both given in the OED. The meaning of howed would be ‘having a marking like a cap or coif on the head’.

kneebanded

1602 (XII. 129) a black bullock that goeth ‘kneebanded’

kneeband is in the OED with no quotations, but is well established in the literature. The derivative kneebanded is not in the OED, but compare these later examples:

1769 Pennsylvania Gaz. 2 Nov. in NJ Archives XXVI. 369 A chestnut sorrel mare..has a mark round her near leg, above the knee, made with a rope by going knee banded.

1862 G. F. Playter Hist. Methodism in Canada i. 72 Keeler preaching in Thurlow one night, lost his horse. He was knee-banded, for pasture, perhaps with no enclosure.

Nothing found on Early English Books Online.

northern, western

These are terms describing cattle, perhaps referring to the provenance of the individual animals, or, more likely, to the provenance of the breed.

1558 (VIII. 45) norden cow

1559 (II.  112) the best Northern cow

1561 (I. 213) a black Northern cow

1584 (X. 4) 5 Northern bullocks

1588 (V. 102) my northern black cow

1588 (XI. 13) the Northern heifer

1592 (XI. 264) my Northern bullock

1594 (XI. 100) my little Northern cow

?a1567 (VIII. 125) 1 bullock of the Northern kind

1591 (XI. 67) my black western cow

1594 (XI. 86) my western cow

Contrast:

1598 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 164 the northern white gelding.

No evidence is available on Early English Books Online.

ronded

This is another adjective used to describe animals, in this case horses.

1558 (VIII. 154)  ronded mare

1559 (I. 74) raundyde mare

1573 (IX. 60)  the ronded mare

1578 (IV. 16)  my ‘ronded’ colt

1578 (IV. 20)  my young ‘ronded’ gelding

1585 (X. 29) ronded mare

1587 (X. 36) ronded mare

1588 (V. 73) my ronded colt

1590 (XI. 186) 1 ronded bald mare colt

1598 (XII. 217)  ronded gelding

Also:

1574 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 183 a ronded wort carthorse.

1602 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 117 my pied stone horse, my ronded mare and her colt.

One other example has been found outside the Essex Wills:

1572 in Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth: Preserved in the Public Record Office (1913) XVII. 473, I am very sorry you did not send for my  ‘ronded’ gelding sooner. If the weather were as cold and as full of snow with you, as it was here all February, I am afraid Walter shall find him there dead for hunger. I were better to have lost 10l.”—Blois.

The word rand n. could supply the etymology and meaning. Common to most of its senses is the notion of a strip: in sense 1a and b, of land, in sense 2 of meat or fish, and in sense 3 of leather or iron. Several senses are specifically evidenced in East Anglia, and sense 2b, denoting a strip of marshy land, is chiefly East Anglian and usually in the form rond. If ronded is a derivative of this word, it would mean ‘characterized by strips’ (presumably of colour).

Another possibility that presents itself is randed:

1854 A. E. Baker Gloss. Northamptonshire Words & Phrases II. 158 Randed, specked, grub-eaten on the outer coat or skin, and not penetrating beyond. The term is particularly applied to potatoes, and presents a curious instance of limited locality; though very current in Northampton market, it is not recognised beyond the immediate vicinity. I have never met with any printed authority for the word, and am not aware that it is known out of the county. Fruit that is bruised by hail is also said to be randed.

This word would also offer a term relating to the outside of an animal, though neither the phonology nor the location (nor the limited use of the word at least by the mid nineteenth century) entirely favour this derivation. This objection is partially overcome by the fact that Baker also gives rand in OED’s senses 2a and 3a.

Continuing my posts on the vocabulary of the Essex Wills and its place in English lexical history, an introduction to which can be found in this blog.

The Essex Wills are naturally full of words for household goods. The majority are words that are still used, though the things to which they are applied may now be different in design or appearance. A large majority are words, or meanings of words, that are no longer used, but are carefully recorded in dictionaries, and especially in the Oxford English Dictionary. But a significant number have escaped notice by lexicographers and yet can be found, often in large numbers, in wills, inventories, and other non-literary documents of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (and sometimes in earlier and later documents). 

tables

bench board

The Essex Wills contain four examples of this term:

1566 (II. 160) my table in the hall with the benchboard and the form

1571 (III. 238), 1572 (X. 14) benchboard

1596 (XI. 138) my table which I call a bench board.

It also occurs in the Essex Gentry wills:

1568 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 270 the table, cupboard, form, benchboard, stained cloths.

In seventeenth century inventories from Essex:

1637 in  F. W. Steer Farm & Cottage Inventories of Mid-Essex 1635–1749 (1969) 71, 2 stooles, 2 bench boards.

1638 in F. W. Steer Farm & Cottage Inventories Mid-Essex (1950) 77 In the hall one benc board, 16s.

It is doubtful whether the example below refers to the same thing:

1833 Edinb. Rev. Oct. 102 Seated on their bench-board, they would allow them to dispose of suits, or take measure of crimes and misdemeanours, and furnish penalties that should fit.

The older kind of table, as other items examined here show, was the flat board that was mounted on trestles or other supports when needed and could at other times be stowed away. Possibly bench board referred to a table that was thought to resemble a bench in having permanent supports, i.e. the modern kind of table. Perhaps the 1596 testator says ‘which I call my bench board’ because this was regarded as a new design whose name was not yet fixed. Alternatively it might have been a table used with a bench.

dorman 

There are at least three examples of this in the Essex Wills:

1573 (III. 86) a form and a pair of dormans standing in the hall

1577 (IX. 29) the long table in the hall lying on the dormans

1590 (V. 159) a table with a pair of dormans and 2 forms in the hall

It is evident from the above that dormans can (i) come in pairs, and (ii) support a ‘table’. The latter is not likely to be a table as we think of it, with built-in legs, but table n. 6c ‘a movable board placed on trestles or supports for the serving and eating of a meal’. If so, dormans must be trestles or supports of a similar kind. 

The OED senses of dorman n. are: 

1 = DORMANT n. 1 ‘a fixed horizontal beam’

2a = DORMANT n. 2 ‘a projecting vertical window in the sloping roof of a house’

2b = dormer-tile (relating to dormer in the previous sense). 

The Essex Wills also contain a word dormer in what is probably the same sense as dorman above, seeing how similar it is to the 1590 example of that word (OED has no relevant sense of dormer n.):

1597 (XII. 167) the long table in the hall with the form, dormers, blackboard, benches

Curiously, there is also a better known lexical item dormant table (OED’s dormant adj. 3 a ‘fixed, stationary’, 3b dormant table ‘a table fixed to the floor, or forming a fixed piece of furniture’. This is the more prestigious table with fixed legs (such as a bench board might be), while a dorman was only a component, used to make up the humble trestle table. 

This has (in my view) misled one historian (N. J. G. Pounds The Culture of the English People (1994) 141), who writes (re the 1573 Essex Wills example above) ‘it is all the more surprising to find in a husbandman’s cottage in 1573 “a pair of dormans standing in the hall”. The “dormant” table was of more solid construction..instead of trestles, it had four or more legs…’ 

There seems to be no evidence on Early English Books Online for dormans.

fold table

On the face of it, this would seem to be a table that folds. There are numerous examples in the Essex Wills:

1563 (VIII. 109) a little fold table

1573 (IX. 187) 1 ‘foulte’ table with a form in the hall

1578 (IX. 31) the fold table with the form

1587 (V. 207)  folte table

1587 (V. 207) foult table

1596 (VI. 227  folt table

There occur also:

1559 (II.  110)  folding table

1601 (XII. 127)  folded table

which are transparently tables that fold, which would appear to support the interpretation.

However, the form fold premodifying table needs explaining. What part of the family of fold words does it belong to? 

It may be an irregular past participle, though it seems a bit strange to call a folding table a ‘folded table’. The verb fold does have a ‘strong’ past participle form folden. This is used as an adjective, OED folden adj., under which, pleasingly, there are two examples of folden board / table:

1512 in W. H. Stevenson Rec. Borough Nottingham (1885) III. 114   Unam tabulam vocatam ‘a folden borde’ cum tribus foliis.

1572 in J. Raine Wills & Inventories N. Counties Eng. (1835) I. 348   One lyttle fauden table.

But we still have to explain why there is no -en. This is not difficult, as a number of past participles in modern English have lost this ending, for example find, with former participle founden, now found.

folden could have been similarly reduced to fold by loss of the suffix –en. A past participle form fold (with loss of –en) is actually shown in the forms list for the verb fold v.¹

However, we also have to explain why the Essex Wills examples contain several forms with final –t. A participial form with final –t is also exemplified in the forms list for the verb fold v.¹: Middle English y-falt, folte, fifteenth-century falt. 

This looks more like a ‘weak’ formation of the same type as bent from  bend and felt from feel than a reduced form of folden. So whether this lexical item is regarded as only a variant of folden adj. or as a separate entity depends partly on how we interpret its formation.

Another possibility is simply that the final /d/ of fold has been assimilated to the initial /t/ of the following word table.

The form foult is also found here (where assimilation of /d/ to /t/ is again possible before ch /tʃ/):

1588 in D. Yaxley Researcher’s Glossary (2003) 37 one foulte chayer of black & redd Mockadow vijs.

The sense remains a bit puzzling. A ‘folding table’ is an obvious compound, but a ‘folded table’ seems a less intuitive description, if it is the same thing.

No examples seem to be available elsewhere.

frame

This is another term associated in the Essex Wills with table, like dorman, and probably with a similar meaning, since the table lies or stands on the frame; but as it does not seem to come in a pair, it is perhaps some kind of single removable structure for supporting a table: 

1561 (II. 124) the table with the frame

1567 (II. 182) a table with a frame

1572 (X. 14) my table and frame to it

1586 (V. 86) a little frame form

1588 (V. 94) the ashen table as it standeth on the frame in the hall

1590 (XI. 28)  [to] Sybil an elm chest and Elizabeth a frame chest, Richard..a fir chest, Susan..a great oak chest

1595 (VI. 221) a table lying on a frame

It also occurs in the Essex Gentry wills:

1589 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 203 the long table and frame and an old long form.

1589 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 203 a table with a frame.

The Essex Wills also have:

1587 (V. 109)  a joined framed table

Outside the Essex Wills we find the following evidence:

1582 Inventory of James Benchkin’s goods, 30 November in Constance Brown Kuriyama Christopher Marlowe: a Renaissance Life (2002) Appendix 191 Item one table with a frame. [Canterbury]

1598 An Inventory of the Stuff in the College Chambers (King’s College) in Collected Papers of Henry Bradshaw (1889) (164–180):
168 Item a square table with a frame & ij formes
172 Inprimis a table with a frame a forme & a benche
176 a table with a frame

1605 Inventory of John Marlow’s goods, 21 February in Constance Brown Kuriyama Christopher Marlowe: a Renaissance Life (2002) Appendix 191 234 A litle table with a frame.

It is evidently a specific use of OED’s frame n. 5a ‘a supporting structure of which the outline or skeleton is not filled in; a framework’. This entry has been revised, but the use seems to be too localized in time and space to have been entered. All the evidence comes from the south-east of England within a period of about 40 years.

sheet/shett table, shot/shut table

sheet/shett

1561 (I. 54) the sheet table with the form that standeth by it

(Felsted) 1570 (II.  246) sheet table with the table of the bench

(?Chelmsford) 1576 (IX. 123) a ‘shete’ table, a frame table

(Wimbish) 1579 (IV. 208) my ‘sheet’ table and the form

(Great Baddow) 1591 (XI. 90) a joined shett table

(Debden) 1594 (VI. 113) 1 ‘shett’ table in the hall

shot/shut:

1563 (I. 247) 1 shut table in the hall

(Thaxted) 1570 (IX. 111) my shut table;

(Great Henney) 1572 (IV.  203) a shut table in the hall

(Great Easton) 1581 (X. 66) the shot table standing at her mother’s

(Tollesbury) 1582 (X. 48) a table shot with leaves

(Great Leighs) 1584 (V. 189) a shut table in the hall

Also:

(White Roothing) 1582/3 (X. 48) the shot-leaved table with a cupboard in it

No other examples found; there seems to be nothing on Early English Books Online. 

It is not clear whether the sheet/shett table and the shot/shut table are the same things. If they were, it would be necessary to explain the relationship of form. ‘shot’ or ‘shut’ seems to have some connection with the presence of ‘leaves’ for extending the table. 

sheet n.¹ does not seem to be used in any sense that could relate to this. 

The word shut n.¹ is promising, as (a) it has a ME form schett; (b) sense 1c is ‘A hinged or sliding door or plate for closing an aperture’; and (c) there is a compound shut-knife (albeit very much later) ‘clasp-knife’, which embodies the same notion of something that folds away.

Yeting and yoting

Wills and inventories from many areas mention yeting vats and yoting vats, and the Essex Wills are no exception. There are at least five mentions of yoting vat: 

1560 (I. 280) from Harlow 

1569 (II. 238) from Great Dunmow 

1577 (IV. 10) (yauthing vat) from Great Waltham 

1581 (IV. 76) from High Laver 

1586 (XI. 244) from High Easter 

Also:

1563 (VIII. 123) yotting tub 

There are at least three mentions of yeting vat:

1559 (VIII. 15) (yetting vat) from Ugley, 1579 (IV. 204) from Toppesfield, also 1564 (I. 301), 1586 (X. 33) 

1587 (V. 259) (yeating vat) from Stebbing

The Editor of the Essex Wills has glossed several occurrences with an explanation that this was a vat for soaking barley, and there is no doubt that, despite the difference in the shape of yeting and yoting, they are the same word. 

The OED enters yoting, giving an example of the compound yowtyng faate from 1583, as a derivative under the verb yote, whose basic sense is ‘to pour’. Sense 2 is ‘to pour liquid upon; to soak’, clearly the sense of our compound: two of OED’s quotations mention ‘yoted wheat’ and brewer’s grains being ‘yoted’. The etymology states that it is a ‘local development’ (chiefly west and south-west) of Old English gēotan, explaining the latter by means of a cross-reference to the verb yet. 

Similarly OED has an entry for yeting which is referred back to the parent verb yet, also derived from Old English gēotan. 

Yote and yet are therefore dialectal doublets. The process which produced them must be the same that gave rise to such doublets as Chaucer’s forms to chese and to shete, beside modern English to choose and to shoot, and closely parallel to that which produced the doublets yelk and yolk. In more technical terms, the Old English diphthong ēo normally developed in Middle English into a long ē /e:/ which became modern English long e /i:/ or, if shortened, ĕ /ɛ/; but after a palatal consonant such as y /j/ or ch /tʃ/ the stress could shift to the second element and the first element then disappeared, giving Middle English long ō /o:/ and modern English oo /u:/ or Middle English long ǭ /ɔ:/, modern English /əʊ/, or if shortened ŏ /ɔ/.

OED, though it recognizes the ‘soak’ sense of yote and yoting and gives a single mention to yoting vat, makes no mention of the equivalent uses of yet and yeting at all; apart from the basic senses ‘pour, flow, gush’, etc., mostly with regard to water, the only extended senses have to do with molten metal. The Essex Wills together with several other collections of wills and inventories provide an important corrective to OED’s picture of the word. 

Moreover the Essex Wills show that yote was not chiefly a western and south-western variant. Both forms existed in 16th-century Essex within a few miles of each other. Our yet forms occur in a triangle to the north and north-east of the rough quadrilateral formed by our yote forms. This might be evidence of some kind of regional dialect boundary. 

There seems to be no evidence available from the chiefly literary texts on EEBO. Mainly south-western documentation is shown by the English Dialect Dictionary, which has yote v. from Glos. (also yeot), Wilts. (also yaught, yaut, yawt), Somerset (also yoat, yeot), and ‘West Country’; [jo:t, jɔ:t]. Sense 1 is ‘to pour; to water’; the example given is ‘the brewer’s grains must be well yoted for the pigs’ (Grose, 1790).

By contrast, non-literary documents, mainly wills and inventories, published in the last century or so, show multitudinous examples of yeting and (more commonly) yoting, from Berkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Somerset, and Wiltshire, as the following (which have not been directly consulted and therefore mostly lack exact documentary dates) demonstrate:

1587 in D. M. Herridge Surrey Probate Inventories, 1558–1603 (Surrey Record Society, Vo. 39) (2005) 237 The grynstone and all that bee long to it A yettynge trofe All the brasc. (also p. 438 yotinge fatte)

M. A. Havinden Household & Farm Inventories in Oxfordshire, 1550–1590 (1965) 50 A molding Bord and A poudering trowghe 1 0 0 A yotyng vate & three olde vates 4 0.

Sussex Notes & Queries (1944) Vol. 9 130 i ladefate, 2 stollages, i yotyng fate, i ost here, feble, for the ost there, i yelefate, i new ladder to the ost, i furneys. 

Surrey Record Society (2005) Vol. 39 298 one busshell, 8 tubbs, syxe kevers, one yotynge fate 13 4 

Berkshire probate accounts, 1583-1712 (1999) 33 one boltinge huche, three firkines, a yotinge fatte, one bushill. 

Devon & Cornwall Record Society (1997) Vol. 40 p. 40 Itm two yotinge vats & one olde hogshead. 

Hampshire Studies: Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society (1996) Vol. 51 128 The malt howse a hogeshed, ii barelles, iii virkyns & a tubbe & a ester heare, iii wayshe vates 3. 4 ii shep skynes 8 iiii grat yotinge vates & ii litle yotinge vates.

1602 in Collectanea Archæologica (1871) 2 111One yotinge vate and frame . . xxs 

Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries (1903) Vol. 2 135 A yotinge ffate. A chese wrynge.

Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society (1937) Vols. 19-20 71 In the mault house — two kyll haires, 12s; a yottinge fat, a boultinge hutche. 

L. Williams & S. Thomson Marlborough probate inventories, 1591-1775 (2007) 52
On yotting vate, on wishtub, on chespres, on renseve, on spad, on ruder 6s. 

Medieval Wills from Wells (Publications of the Somerset Record Society) (1925) 40 239 a great  ‘broche’, a ‘yowting’ tub, a kneeding ‘cowle’. 

F. G. Standfield Hist. East Meon (1984) 30 It. one yowtynge vate a keve a kever a cowle. 

Evidently yoting vats or tubs were everyday household items throughout southern England, and possibly further afield, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The fact that literary sources are silent about them just shows how much of the ordinary English language remained off the radar of ‘standard’ English.