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.

Hebbing in Hessex or Ebbing in Essex?

This post is part of a series on the vocabulary of the sixteenth-century Essex Wills. For an introductory overview, see The Words of Sixteenth Century Essex Woman and Man.

I don’t want any readers of this blog to think that its entire purpose is to criticize the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is my livelihood and my aim is to make it even better than it already is. And the fact is that some lexical items from the past are so scantily recorded that scholarship has been hard put to it to get a grip on them. And this is where non-literary documents like the Essex Wills are so helpful. 

The OED has an entry for a word ebbing n., the main sense of which is defined as ‘the action of flowing back or retiring’; no problem with this: several quotations pair the word with ‘flowing’ and we are clearly dealing with the verbal noun from the verb to ebb, describing what the receding tide does.

But I want to focus on the two compounds listed at the bottom of the entry,  ebbing-lock and ebbing-weir, defined as ‘a lock for detaining fish at the ebb-tide’ and ‘a weir for detaining fish at the ebb-tide’. I want to argue that like Dansk in my earlier post, the entry is a fusion of two unconnected words.

Despite the apparently obvious connection with the word ebb, there are good reasons to think that these compounds are not related to it at all. I think that it is very significant that, unlike any examples of the uncompounded ebbing, all examples of these words begin with h-: 

1539   Will of Thomas Samson (P.R.O.: PROB. 11/27) f. 253,   My Tyde bote..my Hebbing cocke [prob. read locke].
1590   Cal. State Papers, Domest. Ser. 692   Regulations for hooks, lamperne rods, and hebbing nets.
1472   Act 12 Edw. IV vii,   Ascuns..tielx..milledammez estankez de molyns lokkez hebbyngwerez, etc.
1475   Rolls Parl. VI. 159/1   Fishgarthes..Lokkes, Hebbyng weeres..and dyvers other ympedyments dayly been made.
1531–2   Act 23 Hen. VIII v. §2   Myldammes lokkes hebbynge weres heckes and fludgates.
a1642   R. Callis Reading of Statute of Sewers (1647) iv. 211   Locks and Hebbing weres.
1715   J. Kersey Dict. Anglo-Britannicum (ed. 2)    Hebbing-wears, nets or devices laid for fish at ebbing water.
1721–90   in N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict.  [the text, not given in OED, is: Hebbing-Wears, Devices or Nets laid for Fish at ebbing Water.]

Now, it is true that OED gives the verb ebb a sense (3a) ‘to hem in (fish) with stakes so that they cannot go back to the sea with the ebb-tide’; but it provides no examples, simply referring the reader to the entry EBBING n. which we are considering. It looks very likely that the editors inferred this sense of the verb from the verbal noun. 

The Middle English Dictionary gives an entry for ebbinge (ger.); like OED, it places under it the compound ebbing wer, ‘a weir for trapping fish at ebb tide’, where the headword has no h but the two examples have it (one of which is almost identical with one of OED’s):

(1472) Statutes Realm   2.441:  Fishgarthez, molyns, milledammez..lokkez, hebbyngwerez.
(1472-5) RParl.  6.159a:  Dyvers and many Weeres, Fisshgarthes..Lokkes, Hebbyng weeres.  

The OED also has an entry for ebberman n. Again, the quotations all show h- in the headword:

1689   in J. Stow Survey of London (1720) II. v. xxviii. 383/2   No..Hebberman, shall..fish for Smelts between Good Friday and, [etc.].
1715   J. Kersey Dict. Anglo-Britannicum (ed. 2)    Hebberman, one that fishes below Bridge, commonly at ebbing Water, etc.
1720   J. Strype Stow's Survey of London (rev. ed.) I. i. vii. 33/2   A Number of Fishermen belonging to the..Thames, some stiled..Hebbermen.
1721–90   in N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. [the text, not given in OED, is:  Hebberman, a Fisherman below London-Bridge, who fishes at ebbing Water. L.T.]

The etymology is given as from the distinctly fishy h-less agent-noun ebber, for which no evidence is forthcoming: it is said to be a derivative of ebb v. sense 3, which, as we have already seen, is probably artificial.

The OED also gives an entry hebberman n. ‘Variant of EBBERMAN n.’ with four examples:

1630   Order in R. Griffiths Ess. Jurisdict. Thames (1746) 75   No Hebberman shall fish for Smelts before the twenty-fourth Day of August.
1630   Order in R. Griffiths Ess. Jurisdict. Thames (1746) 76   No Hebberman shall work any higher for Whitings than Dartford Creek.
1670   T. Blount Νομο-λεξικον: Law-dict.   Hebber-man, a Fisherman below London-bridge, who fishes for Whitings, Smelts, &c. commonly at Ebbing-water, and therefore so called.
1839–40   Thackeray Catherine xiv,   The ferries across the river, and..the pirates who infest the same—namely tinklermen, petermen, hebbermen, trawlermen.

From the dictionary evidence, the word seems to belong especially to the Thames estuary. In complete accord with this, all four examples in the Essex Wills are either from Barking or Leigh-on-Sea, which lie on that waterway. 

Also in conformity with the OED evidence, the Essex Wills examples all begin with h-. They too chiefly include compounds, some new: 

hebbing cock 1558, 1589 (which two uses make OED’s  emendation of its 1539 quotation from cocke to locke unnecessary) 

hebbing boat 1587 

hebbing net 1588. 

But what is especially striking is that one example also contains the verb: 

‘my part of the boat that is to heb in’ (1588, XI. 213)

Here ‘to heb’ must be an activity that a person does from within a boat. This seems conclusively to disconnect the activity of hebbing from the action of the tide in ebbing. 

The idea that the two words were connected probably starts in Blount’s Law Dictionary (the 1670 quotation at HEBBERMAN), from which all the other sources which talk about fishermen fishing at ebbing water may well derive their information.

Early English Books Online provides two examples of the compound hebber-boat:

1577 J. Dee General and rare memorials pertayning to the perfect arte of nauigation [STC 6459] Wherin, the  Hebber-Boats, only, might sufficiently…

 1698 Jovis duodecimo die Maii 1698, annoque regni Regis Willielmi ... this day an order and report made by the Committee for Letting the Cities Lands, touching several duties taken by several officers and others at Billingsgate  [Wing  L2865F] Every Hebber-Boat or Smack 00 00 01.

This is very likely a boat from which hebbing is done, which makes it less likely to be the hemming in of fish with stakes.

So what is heb-? What is its etymology? My suggestion is that it represents a regional preservation of the former alternative present stem of the verb ‘to heave’, Old English hebban. MED shows heb- forms from Layamon, the Nero MS of Ancrene Wisse in the thirteenth century, and the Pepys MS of the South English Legendary (Gloucestershire), Sir Firumbras (Devon), and William of Shoreham (Kent) in the fourteenth century: the form receded to small areas of the south in later Middle English. The verb has ME senses to do with lifting things up, though nothing as specific as fishing.

Some support for this suggestion may be found in OED’s entry for heaving n. Here there is an item heaving-net cited from a 1584 quotation relating to Thames fishery: 

‘No Fishermen, Garthmen, Petermen..shall avaunce or set up any Wears, Engines..Heaving Nets, except they be 2 Inches in the Meish’

In order to elucidate this, OED cross-refers to quot. 1805 at sense a, which explains that 

‘A..mode of fishing, called heaving or hauling, is standing in the stream..with a bag or net fixed to a kind of frame... Whenever a fish strikes against the net, they..instantly haul up the mouth of the net above water’ 

It’s true that this is taken from a source dealing with Scotland, and that it doesn’t envisage the use of a boat, but it explains how the operation combines static nets or weir-like apparatus with immediately ensuing action on the part of the fisherman.

Essex: end of the road for an Old English Suffix?

This post is part of a series on the vocabulary of the sixteenth-century Essex Wills. For an introductory overview, see The Words of Sixteenth Century Essex Woman and Man.

The Oxford English Dictionary contains a curious little entry for the word endware. Here it is:

† ˈendware, n. ? perhaps some error; Old English *ęnde-waru (collect. singular) would mean ‘the inhabitants of an end’ (compare END n. and -WARE suffix). Halliwell gives ‘Endware, a hamlet, Linc.’; but it is not in the Linc. glossaries.
Obs. rare—1.

? = ENDSHIP n.

1577 W. HARRISON Descr. Eng. (1877) ii. xiii. i. 261 The moonkes were authors of manie goodlie borowes and endwares neere unto their dwellings..But alas..they wrought oft great wickedness and made those endwares little better than brodelhouses.

Here we have two question marks, but really three or four questions.

1. Is it really an error by a couple of antiquarians?
2. Does it mean ‘endship’ (which itself means ‘a small suburb, a township’, and is used by Bunyan and Defoe, and so was once perhaps well known)
3. Why is it not in Lincolnshire glossaries if Halliwell is right about it being found there?
4. Could it be a compound of end and the suffix -ware?

On the basis of the Essex Wills, I believe we can confidently answer ‘no’ to question 1. It’s a real word! And on the same basis, I think we can assume that Halliwell was right in his definition ‘a hamlet’ (question 2), right in entering it as a regional word (question 3), but somehow mixed up his counties, and should have put ‘Essex’.

The Essex Wills contain at least six examples of endware, dating from 1563 to 1599, the right period for Harrison’s mention. They are very clear in their meaning, for example:

 ‘the hamlet or endware called Duck Street in [Saffron] Walden’ (1563 I. 214) 

The actual townships referred to in this way are as follows: 

1. Duck Street near Saffron Walden (1563) (now lined with desirable detached houses)
2. Finchingfield (1571)
3. an unnamed place near Little Walden (1575)
4. Boyton End (probably the one near Thaxted; the one near Sturmer is in Suffolk) (1585) 
5. Beazley End near Wethersfield (1591, 1599). 

Now what is especially interesting is that these places are all within a small area, roughly north-west of Braintree. My map (from a 1950s road atlas) is by no means perfect (the large towns near the bottom left and right are Bishops Stortford and Braintree), but it should be possible to make out the pencilled boxes marking No. 1 to the left of the old A1, on the left, No. 3 on the B1052 near the top left of the map, Nos. 4 (on the B1051) and 2 (on the B1053) roughly in the centre, and No. 5 towards the right, near Halstead.

It is also worth pointing out that this part of Essex bristles with place names which end in end. Two of our endwares do, for a start, but there are the famous Audley End, Howlett End, Cornish Hall End, Duck End, Bran End, Puttock End, numerous Church Ends, and so on.

The next really gratifying thing is that William Harrison, the author of OED’s example, was Rector of Radwinter, in exactly the same area; on the map it’s on the B1053, just north of No. 4, and somewhat to the south-east of No. 3. In other words, writing in 1577, he was employing the same term for a small settlement that people living in the villages around him used in their wills. 

Now for question 4. The terminal element –ware meaning ‘inhabitants of–’ was not uncommon in place names such as Old English Cantware Kent. However it seems to have ceased to form new words after the Old English period, and the compounds in which it occurred all became obsolete:

earthware (†13th century)

heavenware (†13th century)

hellware (†14th century)

Romeware (†13th century)   

If the suffix ceased to be productive well before these words died out, *endewaru must have been coined in Old English. The word endware may be an unattested Old English word that survived for 500 years in a small corner of Essex.