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.

Forgotten Words: the Essex Wills as Witness

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 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). 

Furniture: terms relating to beds

bedsteadle 

There are numerous instances of this word from 1558 onwards. Typical cases are:

1559 (I. 87) To John a bedstead. To Agnes my daughter a bedsteadle. 

1575 (III. 165) my joined bedsteadle, a bedstead. 

The approximate meaning is the framework on which a bed is made, but differing in some unspecified manner from a bedstead. 

The second element does not appear to be a derivative (such as a diminutive) of stead, i.e. of the second element of bedstead (OED STEAD n. 8, recorded from a1475 onwards). 

Rather, steadle seems to be a variant of  OED STADDLE n., of which steddle is recorded as a variant, and which has a sense ‘a supporting framework’ (3d). This is attested only from a1800; but the word steadle is used both alone and in a compound with trundle, which means a ‘truckle bed’:

Essex Wills (1582, X. 229) my bed standing on the sollar with the steadles.

Essex Wills (1591, VI. 130) a flockbed and a pair of trundle steadles belonging.

The word also occurs in the edited volumes of Essex gentry wills:

1566 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 276 a posted bedsteadle.

1585 in F. G. Emmison Elizabethan Life: Essex Gentry’s Wills (1978) 88, 2 of the best bedsteadles with 2 of the best testers belonging.

We get some confirmation for this from the Middle English Dictionary at stathel (n.) (which is the Middle English equivalent of  OED’s staddle n.). MED has the variants: ‘Also .. stedel(e, stedil, stedul(le; pl. stedel(l)es’ and gives, at sense (b): ‘bed ~, the framework of a bed, a bedstead’, with the sole illustrative example:

(1483) in M. R. James The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Emmanuel College: A Descriptive Catalogue (1904) 11 Item, yn the grette chambur ii bede stedellys..Item, in the lytyll chambyr a bedde stedyll.

The provenance of this text, and indeed its identity, is unclear, but its being preserved in a Cambridge library make it possible that it is an East Anglian MS.

This evidence can be supplemented by a number of other documents, all from south-eastern England:

1582 Inventory of James Benchkin’s goods, 30 November in Constance Brown Kuriyama Christopher Marlowe: a Renaissance Life (2002) Appendix 191 Item one joyned bedstedell. (There is also an instance on p. 193, from Canterbury.)

1605 Inventory of John Marlow’s goods, 21 February in Constance Brown Kuriyama Christopher Marlowe: a Renaissance Life (2002) Appendix 191 235 Item a playne bedstedle, matt and rope, and a flocke bed and a fether bed.

The English Dialect Dictionary, at bed n., has ‘bed-steddle, a bedstead’ with two Essex citations (1814 Monthly Mag. I. 498) and two Kent citations, one of 1793 (Pluckley Poorhouse Accounts)  and Memorials of Eastry (870) 224. 

1893 Trans. Essex Archaeol. Soc. 4 15 Bedsteadle occurs in 1705, a dialectical form of ‘bedstead’, which is still localized in N. Essex, and which I have seen in a Sible Hedingham will of rather earlier date than this instance. Neither Dr. Murray nor Forby mentions it.

Finally we find the twentieth-century dialect dictionary of Essex testifying to the fact that this is a genuine Essex word:

1923 E. Gepp Essex Dialect Dictionary (ed. 2) 19 Bedsteadle: a bedstead. Apparently a peculiar Essex form. See Staddle. Ibid. 108 Steadle: for  bedsteadle. It is a form of staddle, a foundation, stand (9th c.), q.v. 

Only the Essex Wills suggest, by using the two words in the same contexts, that there was a distinction between a bedsteadle and a bedstead. No evidence seems to be available on EEBO. 

Bedsteadle is an unentered word with a history stretching from 1483 to 1923.

girt, girted

An adjective describing a bedstead, bedsteadle, or trundle bed. With the exception of the example below, I have found it only in the Essex Wills, and the meaning is unclear. OED’s GIRT adj., sense 1, is given the definition ‘in sense of the verb’, presumably GIRD v.1 of which it is the old past participle. This verb, as we know, means ‘to surround or encircle’, but there seem not to be any senses specifically with beds as the object, or anything closer than sense 4c ‘to put (a cord, etc.) round something’ (only in Swift’s Gulliver). 

Although the apparently ‘double’ past participle form girted is notionally covered by the fact that girt can be a variant of the main form of the verb gird, there is also a verb GIRT v., of which sense 2 is ‘to secure with a girth’ (1663, 1841).

1587 (X. 79) gyrt bedsteadle

1595 (XI. 135) girte bedstead

1560 (I. 11) 1 trundlebed girted with 2 little old featherbeds

1571 (III. 19) girted bedstead

1581 (X. 231) girted bedstead

The only other example found is considerably later. Somewhat surprisingly it occurs in a translation, raising the implication that there existed an equivalent in French. Moreover the text itself is ordinary ‘standard’ English.

1715 tr. C. de Renneville French Inquisition 77 At length, on Friday the 8th of September, I was much surpriz’d to hear the Tower open’d before Four in the Morning, and to see Ru coming into my Room, bringing a Girt Bedstead, then he brought a Straw Bed, a Quilt, a Boulster, a Blanket, and a deep Rush Chair, all quite new.

It is distinctly possible that the term is equivalent to a trussed bed or trussed bedstead (OED TRUSSED adj. 1), which is the same as a trussing bed or trussing bedstead. None of these are directly defined, but an 1861 quotations tells us:

Portable beds were often called ‘trussing’ beds.

So probably a girted bedstead was a portable one.

half-head, half-headed 

These terms relating to styles of bed are common in the Essex Wills, the former as noun and premodifier, the latter as adjective. As one might expect, the derived adjective half-headed appears later than the noun half-head.

half-head:

1563 (VIII. 74)  a bedsteadle with a half head

1572 (III. 62)  bedsteadle..the other with a half head;

1574 (III. 423)  a joined bed with a half head

1584 (X. 3)  the bedstead with the half head

1591 (VI. 196)  a bedsteadle joined with a half head

1591 (XI. 150)  1 joined bed with a half-head

1592 (XI. 278)   a standing bed with a half-head and featherbed

1600 (XII. 216)  1 posted bedstead..with a half-head

1602 (VII. 142)  2 flock beds with half-heads

note also half a head:

1573 (III. 298) a posted bedsteadle with half a head

That this is not a specifically Essex term is shown by:

1597 Will of Hugh Cicill, carpenter, St Philip in S. Lang M. & McGregor Tudor Wills Proved in Bristol 1546–1603 (1993) 25 Or ells at that time to buye for her one newe Bedsteede withe a halfe hea[d] at his choice.

half-headed:

1582 (IV. 158) half-headed bed

1587 (X. 254) half-headed bedsteadle

1590 (XI. 120), 1594 (XI. 244), 1591 (XI. 35) half-headed bedstead

The terms are used of beds that are recorded as having a tester, and so presumably describe a bed whose tester (in the later sense of the canopy over the bed) that covers only the upper end, as opposed to the traditional ‘four-poster’ with a canopy covering the full length of the bed. Yaxley (2003: 12) explains half-headed bed as ‘bed with canopy covering only top half of bed, supported only by the posts of the bedhead’. This would be borne out by an apparent contrast with whole-headed:

1585 (V. 294) whole-headed joined bed

Historians have given other explanations, namely that the terms refer to the vertical part at the head of the bed (tester in its earlier meaning), but the evidence seems to fit this better. (Note also the contrast with ceiled bed in quotation 1751 below.)

It is not an unusual term, and certainly ought to be in the OED. The examples listed above are all earlier than those (all from the seventeenth century) listed in Weiner 1997: 242. The term was still in use in the 19th century:

1721 Particular & Inventory Sir John Blunt 44, 4 square Stools, a half headed Bedstead, a Feather Bed and Bolster. 

1728 Catalogue Household Furniture Thomas Coke 4 A half-headed Bedstead, blue Curtains, a Feather Bed.

1732 Inventory Richard Woolley 10 In the Garrets. A Bedstead and Bedding, a Mat, a half headed Curtain Rod.

1751 Inventory of Andrew Revill of Ecclesfield Parish in Agricultural Hist. Rev. (1969) 17 115 Near Chamber: 2 half headed Beds and 2 Ceild Beds £1.5.0.

1830 Belle Assemblée Sept. 114/2 Two rooms; in one was a half-headed bedstead, with a flock or straw bed—I know not which.

1871 Exchange & Mart 8 March 303/2 Wanted, an Arabian half-headed bedstead, iron or otherwise, plain, but in good condition.

Note also half a headed bedstead:

1600 Will of Nicholas Woulfe, carpenter, St Philip in S. Lang & M. McGregor Tudor Wills Proved in Bristol 1546–1603 (1993) 73 Halfe a headded bedsteed with a flock bedd.

Half-headed is entered in the OED (unrevised entry) only in the sense ‘half-intelligent’. No evidence seems to be available on EEBO.

post bed, post bedsteadle

OED’s POST n.1 has been revised, but this item was probably too rare to find its way into the entry. It is not common in the Essex Wills, but there are a few later examples. The meaning is presumably the same as four-posted bed.

1564 (VIII. 144) my postbed that I lie in

1569 (II.  238), 1582 (IV. 148) post bed

Also:

1570 (IX. 89) post bedsteadle

1582 (IV. 212) postern bedstead

The later examples are:

1846 C. MacFarlane Romance of Travel I. vii. 158 What the worthy monk calls a bed was probably much the same piece of furniture still used as a seat by the Turkish sultan when he gives an audience of ceremony, and which is something between a post-bed and a sofa.

1847 J. D. Lang Cooksland iv. 122 This bed-room, in which I found a Colonial cedar post-bed.

1891 Harper’s Mag. 83 824 Joe led Penelope towards the old storehouse chamber in which the Irish traveller was quietly sleeping under the parted curtain a of the ancient post bed.