Odd words from the Essex Wills

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.

Here are some odds and ends of vocabulary that don’t belong to any particular category.

kiltring

The familiar phrase out of kilter has obscure origins. The OED, under kelter², kilter, defines it thus: 

‘Good condition, order; state of health or spirits. Used in the phrases out of kelter, in (good, high) kelter, to get into kelter.’ 

In the etymology it says: 

‘Etym[ology] obscure. Widely diffused in Eng[lish] dial[ect] from Northumb[erland] and Cumb[erland] to Cornwall, and occasional in literature. More frequent in U.S. (in form kilter).’ 

Intriguingly, the earliest examples in the OED, as well as many later ones, are from America: 1628 in Massachusetts for ‘out of kilter’ and 1643 for ‘out of kelter’. Both examples refer to firearms. Nothing of the word’s earlier history is known. It must of course have originated in England.

The Essex Wills (1597 VII. 83), in the will of John Gibson, a miller of West Bergholt, contain the following example of an otherwise unknown verbal noun kiltering: 

tools and implements belonging to the mills as mill bills, hammers and such things as belong to the ‘kiltring’ of the mills

Gibson owned both a corn mill and a fulling mill. A mill bill is ‘a steel adze fixed in a wooden handle, used for dressing and cracking millstones’ (OED). It is obvious that kiltering here means getting something into operational order, possibly in particular a device like a millstone or musket that has grooves which need to be sharp and clean. It rather implies, though does not make certain, the prior existence of a verb to kilter. This verb, in much the same meaning, is attested 326 years later, also from Essex, in:

1923 E. Gepp Essex Dialect Dictionary (ed. 2) 20 kilter up, to repair an implement, or anything.

This occurrence of kiltring in the Essex Wills will does not solve the mystery of the word’s etymology but it makes clear that it belongs to the realm of technology and takes it back thirty years. It might suggests a connection between Essex and the early New England settlement, except that we know that the noun kilter was widespread throughout the country, at least at a later date—and there is no clear reason to suppose that the word spread from Essex or the southeast.

Early English Books Online provide one example of kilter earlier than both OED and the Essex Wills:

1582 J. Ludham tr. R. Gwalther Homilies ix. f. 67, [STC 25012 image 75] So is it necessarye that the riuers of heauenlye doctrine should flowe into the mindes of men being otherwise barren and out of  kilter, to the end they may be made fitte for those thinges, that are prescribed vnto vs of the Lord.

Ludham was vicar of Withersfield in Suffolk.

They also have one that is only earlier than OED:

1621 Taylor, Thomas The parable of the sower 153 [STC (2nd ed.) 23840 image 89] The good Husbandman, who would keepe his ground in good kilter. [Occurs twice] 

Taylor (1576-1632), however, was born in Richmond, Yorks; he was at Cambridge (where he could have learnt the expression) but otherwise lived in Reading and London. But both these last two examples relate to tilling the soil rather than maintaining a tool.

And EEBO also have two other sixteenth century examples that shed some light on the word.

1654 J. Norton Orthodox Evangelist iv. 63 [Wing N1320 image 41] The upper wheel of a Clock going well, and turning about the lower wheel out of kilter, is the cause of its going, but not of its going amiss.

1674 J. Ray Coll. Eng. Words not generally Used (South & East Country Words) 69 Kelter or  Kilter; Frame, order, Procul dubio (inquit Skinnerus) à Dan. Opkilter succingo, Kilter, cingo; vel forte à voce cultura. Non absurde etiam deflecti posset à Teut. Kelter, torcular, Skinnerus quem adisis.

Norton (1606-1663) was a teacher at Ipswich, Mass., and born in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, and his example relates to a mechanical device.

Ray in the seventeenth century definitely ascribes the word to the south and east. 

The English Dialect Dictionary gives kilters sb. pl. Ess[ex]. Tools, implements; the component parts of anything. 

Whereas under kelter sb. the same dictionary gives the word as widespread in Scotland and England as well as America.

It’s difficult to know what to make of this, but tentatively there seems to be a meaning specifically relating to tools and mechanisms, with a derived verb that is associated with Essex and the surrounding area; and the word may have been exported to America from this base.

Maytide

It’s a surprise not to find Maytide in the OED (which has revised this part of the alphabet). The Essex Wills have three examples, from 1576 (III. 205), 1588 (XI. 218), and an uncertain date between 1583–92 (V. 114) 

Further examples are not uncommon:

1593 B. Rich Greenes Newes both from Heauen & Hell [STC 12259] sig. D3^v,At May-tyde, who was the ring-leader for the fetching home of a May-pole, but I.

1624 G. Goodwin Babels Balm [STC 12030] 14 The Rule that  May-tide Lords of Mis-rule finde, Such Lord, such Lawes let be to Rome assign’d.

1739 Laws relating to Poor 134 One John Crowdey the 19th of Febr. 1710, came from Shipley to Easthed in Horsham, and bargain’d with him to serve him till Maytide, for one Shilling per Week. [Occurs several times in this case report]

1755 J. Strange Rep. Adjudged Cases Chancery, King’s Bench, Common Pleas, & Exchequer I. 83 Mich. 12 Ann. Paroch. Horsham v. Shipley there was a hiring from 19 February to Maytide from thence to Lady-day, then to May-tide again, then to Lady-day, and then to the next May-tide; but there being no contract for a year, the court held it no settlement. [Same case as preceding.]

1793 W. L. Bowles Sonnet XXV in Sonnets (ed. 9, 1805) 32 The shrubs and laurels which I lov'd to tend, Thinking their May-tide fragrance might delight.

1868 Gardener’s Monthly June 161/1 Then, what is the use of writing Hints for June, when not even the May-tide has come?

1997 E. Muir Ritual in Early Mod. Hist. iii. 94 Rogation week..frequently overlapped with Maytide.

no elsewhere

A curious expression meaning ‘nowhere else’ found once in the Essex Wills:

1585 (V. 302) in the parlour and chamber and noelsewhere

You might think it a freak, but here are some further examples:

1609 S. Grahame Anat. Humors f. 31, If a man intrude him selfe in a Ladies bed-chamber, & look vpon every thing about him, he shal think him selfe to be no else where, but in an evil deformed shop of Merchandise.

1851 Indicator Jan. 146 Yet need we look no elsewhere for the noblest examples.

1855 Ballou’s Dollar Monthly Mag. Apr. 374/1 There only, then, will I be wed. No elsewhere!

pot

This occurs once in the Essex Wills:

1570 (IX. 74) an old cauldron that we use to pot ashes in

Now, perhaps this is just a variant spelling of put: they use the old cauldron to put ashes in. If that is the explanation, no further exploration is needed.

If it is really pot, it cannot belong to OED’s pot v.1, v.2, or v.3; it looks like a use of pot v.4 in a general sense ‘put something into a pot’, but there is no suitable sense of that verb, which dates from 1616. 

Moreover, the collocation with ‘ashes’ seems to imply some connection with potash n. At the latter entry in OED, however, there is no explanation of the reason for the first element of the compound: one may infer that the plant material burnt to make the ashes was burnt in a pot. There is only one example (1504) of the noun (in its plural form) earlier than our phrase. The next two examples, preceding scientific use in the 1660s, are both from Virginia.

short-legged

Compounds like this one are quite common in the Essex Wills. This happens to occur only once:

1586 (V. 65) short-legged brass pot

Earlier and later examples can be found, though it’s not in the OED:

1540 J. Fitzherbert Boke of Husbandry [STC 10996] sig. G4, The fyfte [property of the fox], to be  shorte legged.

1612 D. Lyndesay Satyre (18??) 509 (l. 3517) Schort-leggit men, I se, be Bryds bell! Will nevir cum thair, thay steppis bene sa wyde.

1675 H. Hexham Eng. & Nether-Dutch Dict. (new ed.) Kort beenigh, Short-legged.

1740 Mem. Royal Soc. V. 262 The short-legged spiders, which are the most common, always find out some place, secure from the wind and the rain, to make their bags in.

But it is noticeable that examples referring to things (those above all related to people or animals) are hard to find outside the Essex Wills.

twyne

Perhaps the testator in the Essex Wills is literally bequeathing some string:

1569 (IX. 174) the residue of my ‘twyne’

Or could this be an uncharacteristically poetic expression meaning ‘the rest of my life’? Compare (in the OED at twine n. 1b): 

1595 G. Markham Most Honorable Trag. Sir R. Grinuile cxxiii, Behold a goddesse shall my lifes twine breake.

And additionally:

1578 T. Blenerhasset Mirror for Magistrates Author’s Ep., I looked that Parcæ shoulde haue shread my twyne before my returne (16th century). 

?1604 R. Williams Poore Mans Pittance in F. Furnivall Ballads from Manuscripts (1873) II. 122 You Fatall Sisters, websters of my lyfe, Spin slowe, wynde softe, and cutt not yet my twyne.

All speakers and no hearers

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 everyday objects and, to a lesser extent, notions. 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). 

dovercott copdich 

The odd-looking expression ‘dovercott copdich’ occurs once in the Essex Wills in 1603 (XII. 162). My guess is that copdich is cup dish, which I have discussed in this blog post, i.e. some kind of table utensil. Dovercott must presumably be Dovercot, a former variant of the name of Dovercourt, the town in north-east Essex, close to Harwich. I guess that a Dovercourt cup dish was either one with a connection to Dovercourt, or perhaps one with a scene of Dovercourt depicted on it.

Dovercourt’s main claim to fame before the Reformation was the rood in the church of All Saints.

This church, in the Catholic times, was greatly celebrated for a miraculous rood, or crucifix, enshrined in the church, which, from its supposed sanctity, attracted many visitors and pilgrims. Its power was thought to be so great, that the vulgar imagined any attempt to close the church-doors upon it would be attended with sudden death; they were therefore left open night and day. This fancied security proved fatal to three misjudging, though well meaning men, who, together with a fourth that escaped, entered the church by night, in the year 1532, and removed the rood to the distance of a quarter of a mile, and burnt it to ashes; being prompted to this action by a wish to prevent the idolatrous worship paid to it by the Catholics. (The Harwich Guide (1808) 54.)

Robert Nares’s Glossary (1822) has the following discussion:

DOVER-COURT, or, corruptly, DOVERCOT. A parish in Essex, near and leading to Harwich; where was once a miraculous cross which spoke, if the legends may be credited.

And how the rood of Dovercot did speak,
Confirming his opinions to be true. 

Collier of Croyd., O. Pl., xi, 195.

Whether this place was alluded to in the following proverb, or some court, conjectured by the editor of those proverbs to have been kept at Dover, and which was rendered tumultuous by the numerous resort of seamen, may be doubted: 

Dover-court, all speakers and no hearers.

Ray, p. 246. 

Possibly the church which contained that rood was the scene of confusion alluded to in the proverb; for we are told by Fox, that a rumour was spread that no man could shut the door, which therefore stood open night and day; and that the resort of people to it was much and very great. Martyrs, vol. ii, p. 392. However this be, the proverb was long current. 

Nares’s first reference is to the following:

a1600 I. T. Grim, Collier of Croydon I. ii. in Select Collection of Old Plays (1744) V. 259 Have you not heard, my lords, the wondrous fame Of holy Dunstan, abbot of Glassenbury? What miracles he hath atchieved of late; And how the rood of Dovercot did speak, Confirming his opinion to be true; And how the holy consistory fell, With all the monks that were assembled there, Saving one beam whereon this Dunstan sate; And other more such miracles as these.

There does not seem to be any other surviving evidence for the belief that the rood of Dovercourt miraculously spoke. And in any case this seems to point to a single event rather than anything that could be the basis for an expression meaning a lot of people talking. So it is unclear whether our dovercott copdich relates to the catchphrase ‘Dovercourt, all speakers and no hearers’.

OED does not record this catchphrase, but has the following quotations which allude to it at the entries shown:

?a1800 Lines in Belfry St. Peter’s, Shrewsb.,  When bells ring round and in their order be, They do denote how neighbours should agree; But when they clam, the harsh sound spoils the sport, And ’tis like women keeping Dovercourt. (at clam v.² 1a: compare the 1671 example below.)

1695 Whether Parl. be dissolved by Death of Princess of Orange 4  They turn more Mobbish than a Dover Court.  (at mobbish adj.)

If you search Early English Books Online, you find:

1662 T. Fuller Hist. Worthies [Wing F2441] Dover-court, all speakers and no hearers.

1670 M. Medbourne tr. Moliere Tartuffe [Wing M2385 image 3] 2 All talk at once, your house is Dover-Court.

1671 T. White Tintinnalogia [Wing T1304C] sig. A3^v, And ’tis like Women keeping Dover Court; For when all talk, there’s none to lend an ear The others story, and her own to hear.

1673 M. Stevenson Norfolk Drollery [Wing S5503] 66 Whilst others freely talk, I must sit mute, I’m not a Man ordain’d for Dover Court.

1683 J. Savage Sacred Rite of Confirmation [Wing S770] 24 What kind of Church were they likely to found at Samaria, where like a Dover-court all should be speakers and no hearers, especially where so many women were permitted to tattle?

1693 R. Ames Fatal Friendship [Wing A2978] 22 One while, like Dover-Court, ’t appears, All Men have Tongues, but none have Ears.

1696 W. King Second Admonition Dissenting Inhabitants of Derry [Wing K534] App. 253 A scoff.., alledging..That it brings in a confused Noise in a Christian Assembly, too like a  Dover-Court, where ’tis said all speak and none hear.

1699 J. Dunton Dublin Scuffle [Wing D2622] As great a noise as Dover Court, for every Man was…

1700 T. Brown Amusements Serious & Comical [Wing B5051] 117 In short, I thought the whole Room was a perfect Resemblance of  Dover-Court, where all Speak, but no body heard nor answer’d.

In the 1670 quotation, the French original has ‘Chacun y parle haut, Et c’est tout justement la cour du roi Pétaud.’ ‘La cour du roi Pétaud, où tout le mond est maître.’

Perhaps the ‘cup dish’ featured a comic portrayal of many speakers and no listeners. Evidently the catchphrase was very familiar in the later seventeenth century. But it seems to have fallen out of use soon afterwards. There seems to be no mention of it in Samuel Dale’s History and Antiquities of Harwich and Dovercourt (1730).

Law and property in the Essex Wills

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.

These are some terms relating to legal documents, property, and institutions.

covent seal

This term appears twice in the Essex Wills: 1561 (II. 124) and 1575 (III. 358).

OED enters one example of covent seal under the undefined lemma convent-seal n.:

1538–9 Instruct. Hen. VIII Visit. Monast. (1886) 14   Whether the Covent-seal of this House be surely and safely kept.

This implicitly links the first element to the older form covent of the word convent. But our examples seem to have nothing to do with monastic institutions. They look as if they have to do with covenant, of which there is a rare Middle English variant covant; occasional Middle English examples of conaunt, etc., with this meaning, may also be transmission errors for couaunt.

Compare:

1583 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 289 by a Duchy [of Lancaster] lease which is 31 years to come after my convent seal.

1583 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 289 my house wherein I dwell which I hold by convent seal of the manor of Much Coggeshall.

The compound is quite common and can be antedated and postdated, e.g. by:

1529 E. Herbert Life & Reign Henry Eighth (1683) 300 The said Lord Cardinal did call before him Sir John Stanley Knight, which had taken a Farm by Covent-Seal of the Abbot and Covent of Chester.

1540 Will of William Masson in C. R. Haines Dover Priory (1930) App. I 435 My Covent seal, which I have, of the late priory of Dover..to my wife.

Whether the first element is convent or covenant, after the Reformation period, the sense of this term seems to have been broadened to refer (perhaps) to the seal of any ecclesiastical body:

1847 J. T. Law Eccl. Statutes at Large II. 371 The same election, under the common and covent seal of the electors.

There are six examples,1655–1687, on Early English Books Online.

fivepartite 

This occurs once in the Essex Wills:

1568 (III. 176) certain writings fivepartite between one T. C...and me and others

OED implicitly covers this under partite adj. 1, with examples 1570 (uncompounded), 1680 (12-partite), then late twentieth century (uncompounded), and 2001 (three-partite).

Later example:

1572 Lease Steventon Rectory in C. S. Knighton Acts Dean & Chapter Westminster 1543–1609 Part Two (1999) 60 Yt was decreed by the deane and chapiter that one lease fivepartite of renovation of the parsonage of Stevington..shall passe under the common seale of this collegiate churche.

Compare also:

1649 J. Owen Ouranon Ourania [Wing O789] The ten-partite Empire of the West.

1688 R. Morden Geography Rectified [Wing M2620] Spain fell into a 12-partite division

guardianership, guardianing 

Examples in the Essex Wills:

1573 (II. I 84) to have the ‘garnership’ of the said children

[no date] (V. 153) gardnership

1562 (II. 139) he to have the ‘gardenynge’ of my children

OED has neither form, but does have guardianer n. ‘a guardian’: its only examples are 1595 gardeaner, a1627 Gardianer.

Essex Wills also has:

1558 (VIII. 51) My gossip..shall have the ‘garden’ and keeping of John my son

head house 

Examples in the Essex Wills:

1558 (VIII. 55) My headhouse in Colchester ‘Heth’ to sell

1560 (I. 208) the headhouse that I dwell in

1561 (II. 130) my head house that I dwell in

1591 (XI. 121) I will that my head house be sold by 6 of the headboroughs of the town

Also:

1583 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 202 my pasture named Partridge Fen to go and continue with the head house in Trinity parish.

Examples outside the Essex Wills:

1527 Will of Robert Cole of Stratford, Suffolk 29 Jan. in New Eng. Hist. & Geneal. Reg. July (1896) 420 To my son Richard at twenty one all that moiety or half part of the lordship of Newhall in East Bargholt and my head house with the appurtenances in the ‘Valye’ in Bargholt which I purchased of the executors of Robert Florett.

1593 J. Norden Speculum Britanniae [STC 18535 ‘historicall and chorographicall description of Middlesex’] 26 But this word Court is hereunto added neither in regard of antiquitie, nor  head house of a mannor.

It is noteworthy that these come from Essex and Middlesex. Apart from these examples, there is a small amount of evidence for head house (hede house, etc.) in the sense ‘mother house of a monastic order’. The sense here, however, appears to be ‘principal dwelling’ (of a person who has several properties to live in), probably the same as the very common expression ‘capital messuage’. OED has this compound only in the senses ‘the main or principal house of an organization’ and ‘a structure containing the winding gear at the top of a mine shaft’.

inventorying

Example in the Essex Wills:

1595 (VI. 220) for inventorying of my goods

Later examples suggest widespread use:

1643 Arthur Lord Capell Lieutenant Generall under the Prince His Highnesse of His Majesties forces, in the counties of Worcester, Salop, and Chester, and the sixt northern counties of Wales To all commanders, officers, and souldiers, and to all other His Majesties subjects whatsoever, whom these presents shall or may in anywise concern [Wing C470] (single page), And that due care shall be had and taken for the punctuall Inventorying and valuable Apprizing of such Moneys, Goods, Cattell, or other Estate which shall be so seized.

1643 Jrnls. House of Lords VI. 279/1 For the more speedy and effectual inventorying, securing, seizing, and obtaining Possessions, of all such Monies, Plate, Goods, and Estates.

1677 Z. Babington Advice to Grand Jurors in Cases of Blood [Wing B248] Otherwise there could be no  Inventorying of Goods.

1688 Some necessary disquisitions and close expostulations with the clergy and people of the Church of England [Wing S4528] 23 In his  Inventorying (as he calls it) of the several things he names.

1773 W. Beawes Lex Mercatoria Rediviva (ed. 6) 386/1 If, on inventorying, any Creditor claims the Merchandise that he should have sold to the Debtor.

1775 Ash New & Complete Dict. Eng. Lang., Inventorying, the act of putting into an inventory.

1789 G. Washington Let. 13 Sept. in Writings (1839) X. 32 If the ceremony of inventorying, appraising, &c. can be dispensed with.

part and part like 

This is a legal phrase indicating equal shares. It’s entered in the OED under like adj., adv., conj., and prep. Phrases 4, a sense which covers part and part like, portion and portion like, share and share like, and mixed phrases such as part and portion like. The entry illustrates part and part like with quotations from 1555, a1638, and 1707. The 1555 example is not in a legal (let alone specifically testamentary) context:

Thei..eate parte and parte like, the one with the other.

But the Essex Wills, where the phrase is very common, show that testamentary use was already established by the 1560s:

1561 (I. 57) My wife shall have her being..part and part like with my..sons

1562 (II. 131) to Edward’s children part and part like

1562 (II. 137) part and part like

1567 (II. 168) part and part like

1568 (II. 144) my brass and pewter to be divided part and part like

1573 (IX. 39) To my aunt and my dame S. all my linen part and part like

1582 (IV. 171)  the money to my children part and part like

Also:

1581 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 312 Equally divided between Elizabeth my wife and my children part and part like.

It is by no means restricted to the Essex Wills, as these examples (none earlier, however) show:

1572 Will of John Parrott of London, 31 Oct. in Endowed Charities City of London (1829) 141/1 Unto and amongst the poorest people of the said parish of St. James aforesaid, unto and amongst the poorest people of the parish of Allhallows Stayning, in London, part and part like to either parish.

1630 Will of John Heminge of London in J. P. Collier Lives Orig. Actors Shakespeare’s Plays (1853) 77 Part and part like.

1634 Will of William Browne (St James Clerkenwell) in E. A. J. Honigmann & S. Brock Playhouse Wills, 1558–1642 (1993) 180 The summe of Ten Powndes of lawfull money of England to be shared amongest them part and part like.

1640 Will of Henry Webb of Boston in New Eng. Hist. & Geneal. Reg. (1856) X. 182 all my other estate, goods, debts, merchandises, Shipps, Chattles, not formerly given, to be devided Amongst them, part and part like.

1675 Will of John Thruston, Chamberlain of Bristol, 25 Mar. in Geneal. Virginia Families 143 To be divided betweene them part and part like.

1707 A General Discourse of Commerce 71 The Commissioners may assign and divide this (viz) to every Creditor a portion, part and part-like.

There are also examples on Early English Books Online from 1597, 1606, 1635, 1651, 1653, 1655, 1665, 1683, and 1695.

rentary

There are several examples of this in the Essex Wills, apparently describing some kind of real estate, probably synonymous with tenement. Most examples are plural. There is no trace of this in the OED.

1559 (VIII. 119) my renters [rentaries] with Burds garden and my ground that lieth above the pond

1560 (I. 207) his deed of ‘rentre’

1571 (IX. 145)  the letting of my head house that I dwell in, with the rentary or tenement and ground belonging

1573 (IX. 41) the 2 rentaries or houses near Head Gate which he hath mortgaged

1577 (IV. 161) my capital messuage wherein I dwell and my rentary with 2 gardens in St. Martin’s parish

1579 (IV. 174)  my house wherein I dwell called 2 tenements or rentaries

1589 (XI. 274)  I will that all those my houses, rentaries and stalls in the borough of Colchester be sold

1592 (VI. 138) With these 5 tenements or rentaries near or adjoining

Also:

1579 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 281 a rentary adjoining and now taken into the tenement on the west part

1579 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 281 the four rentaries adjoining my head tenement

1583 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 201 my capital messuage and head house in Trinity parish with the rentaries, gardens and orchards belonging.

1583 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 201 To her my messuages, rentaries and lands in St Botolph’s Street.

This earlier example is also from the Essex area (Harwich).

1467 in Manners & Household Expenses Eng. Thirteenth & Fifteenth Cent. (1841) 454 Wetenes that I John Howard have bowte of dame An Morpathe here plase lyhen in Herwesche, wethe the ij. renteres and wethe gardenes, and al hoder a portenanse that sche hathe lyhenge in the same towene.

No evidence is forthcoming from Early English Books Online.

selender

An untraced word that is not uncommon in the Essex Wills. There seems to be nothing like it in the OED.

1568 (VIII. 190) I have delivered ‘selender’ to the hands of John Sewall the elder

1571 (IX. 218) delivered the ‘solender’ to R— F—..according to the custom of the manor

1575 (II. I 177) all these to be ‘standers’ [standards] to the house according to my ‘solendar’

1559 (I. 132) deliver a ‘selender’..of the two fields

1560 (II.  118) The ‘selender’ given of my house and land..into the hands of W. H.

1561 (II.  122) I have delivered my ‘selender’ to William Crabe, constable

Also:

1568 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Wills of South-west Essex (1983) 32 The residue of my goods to Agnes my wife, on condition that she perform my ‘selender’ [surrender] that I delivered to John Grene and William Harryson [tenants of the manor]. 

sellender also occurs in the Essex Wills.

This looks (as Emmison suggests) like surrender n. 1a; examples of deliver as verb, with surrender, in regard to property, can be found. However, OED seems not to record spellings of this word with –l-; and in any case, such a sound change seems surprising and unprecedented.

Clampole, cubit, pentysing, and underset

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.

Here are four timber and building terms from the Essex Wills:

clampole

1559 (I. 52) new boards, planks and clampole

1560 (I. 294) timber, board and clampole

Examples outside the Essex Wills:

1559 in Genealogist (1919) 84 To the said Thomas all my part of the tymber borde and clampole now growing or being upon my lands called Myllers.

1603 in F. G. Emmison Eliz. Life: Disorder (1976) 82 Clampole and all my tools.

1603 in F. G. Emmison Eliz. Life: Disorder (1976) 82 The Colchester wages assesment of 1583 gives those of splitters of ‘cloboard and clampell’ and ‘a clampole to make a yielding tub’..occurs in a will of 1592.

1969 P. L. Hughes Tudor Royal Proclamations: later Tudors (1588-1603)  292 Gloss., Clampell, clamp, ship’s plank.

This is evidently timber in some form, possibly (if the 1969 example below is definitive) planking. I have not found the term in any dictionary yet and there seems to be no obvious etymology. In the OED, clamp n./1 sense 3a is ‘one of the thick planks in a ship’s side below the shelf-piece which support the ends of the deckbeams’, but this is timber after it has been worked into a very specific form, which is not what the examples suggest clampole is. In the second 1603 example, clampole is to be used to make a yielding tub. This might be constructed from flat staves bonded together like a piggin.

cubit

This occurs at least six times and denotes some kind of timber; it can be either a mass noun, a count noun, or a premodifier (cubit log):

1566 (III. 455) To the poor people of Brightlingsea 4 loads of cubit

1568 (VIII. 213) the cubits in my yard...the cubit in my house and the logs...

1576 (IV. 117) 1 load of wood, part cubit, part logs

1579 (IV. 166) 1 load of billet and 1 load of cubit

1583 (IV. 178) 20 loads of wood of cubit logs and brush or billet

1594 (VI. 157) half a load of cubit every year

Further examples:

1571 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 188 To my wife for life 300 of good and able cubit from the woods belonging to the manor.

1595 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 125 she shall yearly have 80 cartloads of cubit wood of the wood in Braswick, Kelpastures, Shrittes Woods and Chesterwell Woods and 10 cartloads of logs of the doted trees there for her necessary firing.

In theory this could be an application of cubit meaning a measure of length, but against this is the fact that otherwise cubit is very much a learned word, in general use occurring only in the Bible, and that the context seems to imply a kind of wood, sometimes contrasted with logs, sometimes with brush or billet, which strongly suggests that it is a kind of firewood. The example from F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Wills of Essex Gentry and Merchants (1978) above tends to confirm this.

There is a discussion of this word in:

1890 East Anglian (New Series) 3 76 In 1749 there is a bill ‘for Extrodnareys for Flowers familey’, which has some curious items. 

For a Hogs Head - - - - 00 01 04. More 9 pound of pork - - - 00 02 03. More for a Bushel of wheat & Grinding - - 00 04 03. . . More for 7 Bundles of hop poles - - 00 04 01. More for 13 faggets of Cubit-wood - - 00 03 03. for 2 pair of Showes - - - 00 05 00. More for 49 faggets of Cubit-wood on Dec: the first 00 12 03. 

It will be remembered that in the accounts of 1735, we noticed the phrase ‘cubet to the pore 20 fagits’, &c. From the present entries it appears that cubit-wood is a technical term, indicating faggots of a certain size or quality. Guesses on the subject are fairly obvious, but I have not found the term elsewhere. Can anyone explain it?

This query is re-presented in

1893 Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society 16 In 1735 occurs the curious item — Cubet to the pore, 20 fagits, which is somewhat explained by another in 1749 — More for 49 faggets of cubit-wood 00 03 03. It was apparently the technical term for a particular kind of fagot, and several conjectures are possible, but as I know nothing and cannot find the term elsewhere.

The term is entered in the English Dialect Dictionary Supplement: 

Cubit-fagot, or –wood, sb. Suf. Ken. Meaning unknown. Suf. More for 49 faggets of cubit-wood 00. 03 .03 , Litt. Cornard Par. Accs. (1749); In 1735 the charge occurs ‘cubet to the pore 20 fagits’ (CD.). Ken. (F.H.)

Apart from this a search on Google Books seems not to uncover anything; there seems to be nothing on Early English Books Online. The evidence suggests that it is an eastern counties word.

pentysing

This term occurs once in the Essex Wills and is no mystery; simply a gerund and verbal noun formed from the word penthouse; the evidence does not suggest that it is regional dialect.

1556 (I. 73) for ‘pentysing’ (penthousing) of the Court loft 

There are several further examples:

[1579] in C. H. Cooper Annals Cambridge (1843) II. 367 On the 6th of October, 1579, Lord North the High Steward, sent letters urging the town to accept £20 from Dr. Hatcher towards the charges of paving and penthousing the new fish market at the Peas Market Hill.

1617 in M. Statham Accts. Feoffees Town Lands Bury St. Edmunds 1569–1622 (2003) 248 And of 4s.5d payde to Edmund Raby for penthowsinge windowes at St Peters.

1631 R. Brathwaite Whimzies (STC 3591) 56 A broad-brim’d hat or’e-pentising his discontented looke.

1656 in R. Bird Jrnl. Giles Moore (Sussex Rec. Soc.) (1971) 33 For 1 hundred & 4 foote of penthousing Board.

[date?] in Rec. Honourable Soc. Lincoln’s Inn: Black Books Vol. II  (1897) 361 14s. for 300 boards for ‘pentising’.

underset

This is apparently a structure normally attached to a larger building. It does not correspond to any of the three meanings of underset n. in the OED. The verb underset has the meaning (sense 1a) ‘to support or strengthen by means of something (esp. of the nature of a post or prop) placed beneath; to prop up.’ This then perhaps means ‘a prop or support’, though the examples seem to suggest something more. 

1592 (VI. 162) a ‘honder sette’ belonging to the headhouse..a ‘honder set’ next the church

1595 (VI. 180) the underset adjoining and abutting on the south end of my house

1598 (XII. 43) the ‘underset’ to be set up at 1 end of the cottage of 8 foot long

1601 (XII. 180) my messuage where I dwell and the underset adjoining

Compare the following: 

Skelton Magnyfycence An olde barne wolde be vnderset. 

1649 C. Hoole Easie Entrance to Latine Tongue [Wing H2681] a prop, Fulcrum, eri. n.  undersets, Tibícines, um. n. the prick-

1661 T. Blount Glossographia, Fulciment, a prop or underset.

1688 R. Holme Academy of Armory Stays, Shores,  Undersets, Pillars, Wall-Plates

1736 N. Bailey Dictionarium Britannicum, A Prop, a support, an under-set.

1795 J. Hamilton Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language in Miniature (ed. 16) 92/2 Ful'ciment, s., a prop, an underset, a stay. (Johnson’s Dict. has the definition ‘that on which a body rests’.)

1880 M. A. Courtney Gloss. Words W. Cornwall in Gloss. Cornwall, Colpas, a prop or underset to a lever. (OED at colpice | colpas n.)