Reference

Glossary of Obscure Terms

abet: to incite, instigate, encourage, or countenance (an offence).
absolved: given absolution for remission of sins by an ecclesiastical authority.
accretion: the increase of an inheritance or legacy by the addition of the share of a failing coheir or colegatee.
advowson: right of presentation to a benefice.
affeeror: an assessor of amercements.
affray: breach of the peace caused by fighting or riot in a public place.
agistment: the taking in of cattle or livestock to feed at a rate of so much per head; opening of a forest for a specified time for livestock.
aldercarr/aldercarre: a piece of wet ground where alders grow.
aleconder/alefounder: an inspector of ale.
alienate: to transfer to another owner.
almose: alms.
altarage: the revenue from oblations at an altar, or a fund to maintain an altar and a priest to say masses at it.
amel: enamel.
amove: to remove from a position.
andiron: one of a pair of ornamental metal stands placed at each side of a hearth to support burning wood.
angel or angel noble: an old English gold coin worth 6s8d to 10s having the device of archangel Michael and dragon.
arrent: to let out or farm at a rent.
assart: piece of land converted into arable by assarting (grubbing up trees and bushes).
assets: enough goods to enable an heir to discharge debts and legacies of the testator, or property to be so applied.
assize: (of wood) measure.
assize: (of rents) fixed and certain rents.
assumpsit: an undertaking, a promise or contract oral or in writing, not sealed founded upon a consideration. An action to recover damages for breach of non performance of such contract.
attainder: the extinction of civil rights and capacities when judgment of death or outlawry was recorded against a person who had committed felony or treason. It involved the forfeiture and escheat of the lands and goods belonging to the criminal, or the corruption of his blood ie. he became incapable of holding or inheriting land, or of transmitting a title by descent.
attainted: the conviction of a jury for giving a false verdict, a legal process for reversing the verdict and convicting the jurors.
attermine: to settle the term of; especially to adjourn payment of a debt to day fixed.
attorn: in feudal law, to transfer oneself (ie. one's homage and allegiance) from one lord to another. In modern law, to agree formally to be the tenant of one into whose possession the estate has passed 1458, so 'attorn tenant'.
avayle: advantage, benefit, profit.

bald: 'bald gelding' streaked or marked with white.
bandog: a ferocious dog tied or chained up; hence, a mastiff or bloodhound.
barkehouse: tanhouse.
bast: lime tree wood made into ropes and mats.
baster: cutter of lime tree wood bark.
baudekin: rich stuff originally woven with woof of silk and warp of gold; rich brocade.
bavin: a bundle of brushwood etc. bound with one withe.
bead roll: list of names to be prayed for.
beadsman: pensioner bound to pray for benefactor.
bencher: one of the senior members of the Inns of Court.
bewray: to expose (a person) by divulging his secrets etc.
bill of complaint: petition addressed to the lord chancellor by plaintiff requesting grant of a subpoena; the first pleadings in his case.
bill of revivor: if female plaintiff in Chancery married, the cause would abate until a bill of revivor had been put in.
bolling: a pollard tree.
boundage: the bounds taken as a whole; compass or extent.
boulting tub: possibly from bolter, boulter a piece of cloth used for sifting, a sieve.
brabbling: engaged in paltry noisy quarrel.
brazier: brassworker.
breviat: summary.
brief: summary of facts and law points in a case drawn up for counsel.
buffet stool: a low stool.
burnet wool: dyed cloth of superior quality originally dark brown.

cade: keg.
calamanco: a glossy woollen stuff of Flanders, twilled and chequered in the warp so that the checks are seen on one side only.
capital messuage: that occupied by the owner of a property containing several messuages.
capite: tenure in capite, name of tenure by which land is held immediately of the king or crown.
card: an implement for raising the nap on cloth, iron instrument with teeth to comb out wool.
carucate: as much land as could be tilled with one plough in a year; a ploughland.
cater: caterer.
cauldron: measure of coal 36 bushels.
cawdern: brewing implement.
censer: vessel in which incense is burnt.
certiorari: a writ directed to an inferior court of record commanding it to 'certify' to the monarch in the high court of justice some matter of judicial character. Used to remove civil causes or indictments from inferior courts into the high court that they may be better tried.
chafing dish: vessel with burning charcoal etc. inside for keeping things placed in it warm.
chamlet or camlet: a name originally for a costly eastern fabric, subsequently for substitutes, made of various combinations of wool, silk, hair, and latterly cotton or linen.
charger: a large plate or flat dish.
cheese moat: cheese vat.
chirograph: one of various documents formally written, engrossed or signed.
chirographer: one who engrossed documents.
churchwarden: elected lay representative of the parish, one of two usually elected one by the incumbent one by the parishioners.
clefts: split wood especially for fuel.
clerestory: large area containing high windows (e.g. nave) usually of churches.
close stool: a chamber pot enclosed in a stool or box.
clowting: mending, patching.
cobiron: support of a spit, similar to an andiron.
cobs: top (of trees).
codicil: a supplement to a will.
cognizee: the party in whose favour a fine of land was levied.
comarchus: chief officer of a village.
commandery: an estate or manor belonging to an order of knights and placed under the charge of one of them.
commissary: an officer exercising jurisdiction as the representative of the bishop in parts of his diocese.
common recovery: a mode of barring entails. It was a judgment in a collusive suit brought by a friendly plaintiff or 'demandant' against the tenant in tail (abolished 1833).
common vouchee: the crier of the court vouched to warranty in a common recovery.
commonalty: commonwealth.
compurgation: action of clearing a man from a charge by the oaths of a number of others an old English method of trial.
compurgator: witness to character, who swore along with the accused in order to acquit the latter.
consistory: the diocesan court.
contestis: fellow witness.
contumacy: wilful disobedience to the summons or order of a court.
coparcener: one who shares equally with others his inheritance of the estate of a common ancestor.
cope: a vestment resembling a long cloak made of a semicircular piece of cloth.
copyhold: a kind of tenure in England of ancient origin: tenure of lands being parcel of a manor, 'at the will of the lord according to custom of the manor', by copy of the manorial court roll.
corporas: an ancient eucharistic vestment a linen cloth upon which the consecrated elements are placed during celebration and with which they are subsequently covered.
corrody: provisions.
corselet: a piece of defensive armour covering the body, as distinct from the limbs.
counterpane: counterpart of an indenture.
covenous: by collusion, fraudulently.
coverture: condition of being a married woman.
creepers: small dog irons paid placed between the andirons.
croft: an enclosed field, also a piece of enclosed arable land adjacent to a house.
crowchmas: 14th September.
cumin: plant resembling fennel cultivated for aromatic fruit or seed.
curator ad lites: someone who acted as guardian taking care of the legal matters of a minor.
cursitor: clerk in the chancery office whose duties consisted in drawing up those writs which were 'of course'.
curtilage: a small court, yard, garth, or piece of ground attached to a dwelling house, and forming one enclosure with it, or so regarded by the law; the area attached to and containing a dwelling house and its out buildings.

decener: the head of a decena or tithing or a member of a tithing.
deponent: person making deposition under oath or giving written testimony for use in court etc.
de recte: a writ of right.
defalcation: diminution by taking away, reduction.
defeasance: a condition which makes a deed void.
demesne: possession (of real estate) as one's own, i.e. in ones's own hands as possessor by free tenure.
demurrer: legal exception taken to an opponent's point as irrelevant.
deodant: in law, a personal chattel which, having been the immediate cause of death of a person is forfeited to the crown to be applied to pious uses.
deponent: person making deposition under oath or giving written testimony for use in court etc.
detainer: the action of detaining, withholding, or keeping in one's possession. The (wrongful) detaining of goods taken from the owner for distraint, etc. Forcible detainer violently taking or keeping possession, with menaces, force, of lands and tenements, without the authority of law.
devisee: a person to whom a devise is made.
diaper: textile, usually linen, woven with pattern shown up by opposite reflections from its surface consisting of lines crossing diamondwise with spaces filled up by parallel lines, leaves, dots also could be towel or baby napkin.
diem clausit extremum: writ issued out of the court of Chancery to the escheator of the county upon the death of any of the king's tenants in capite to enquire by a jury of what lands he died seised and of what value and who was the next heir to him etc.
disherison: the action of depriving of, or cutting off from, an inheritance.
dismission: order in Chancery, normally with the force of a decree, whereby a bill was dismissed.
disseisin: the wrongful putting out of him that is actually seised of a freehold.
distress: action of distraining; the legal seizure and detention of chattels originally for the purpose of constraining the owner to do some act, later in order out of the proceeds of its sale to satisfy some debt or claim.
dool: landmark, boundary mark.
doom: an ordinance or decree.
dornick: applied to certain fabrics originally manufactured at the Flemish town of Dornick and used for hangings, carpets, vestments etc.

ejectio firmae: action brought by a lessee who had been ejected before the expiration of his term, or by a lessor to eject a tenant who refused to leave when his term had expired.
empanel: to enter the names of a jury on a panel or official list; to constitute or enrol a body of jurors.
enfeoff: to put in possession of the fee simple or fee tail of lands, tenements etc.
enfranchise: to enfranchise a copyhold or leasehold estate: to convert it into freehold.
engrossing: written in legal hand.
escheat: an incident of feudal law whereby a fief reverted to the lord when the tenant died seised without heir.
escheator: an officer appointed yearly by the Lord Treasurer to take notice of the escheats in the county to which he is appointed, and to certify them to the Exchequer.
escript: a writing.
esplees: the products which ground or lands yield; and the hay of meadows, herbage of pasture, corn of arable, rents, services etc. also the lands etc. themselves.
estate for life: either limited to the life of the tenant, land given to A for life or during the life of another, in A for the life of B 'pur autre vie' or 'cestui que vie'.
estate tail: one given to a man and the heirs of his body. It is only alienable if the tenant in tail has issue, on his death without heirs it will revert to the grantor.
etch: park or enclosed pasture for cattle, or the grass or clover stuble.
ewer: pitcher or water jug with wide neck.
examiner (in Chancery): principal duty was to keep and copy answers of witnesses in response to written interrogatories.
excommunicate: to cut off from communion, to exclude by an authoritative sentence from the communion of the church or from religious rights.
exegesis: exposition of the scriptures.
extrahura: either impounded animals, or goods escheated for intestacy; taking animals from stock.

fardel: bundle.
fee simple: freehold, absolute ownership.
feet of fine: documents recording a judicial proceeding used for conveying land through a fictitious suit (abolished 1833).
feme covert: a woman under cover or protection of her husband; a married woman.
feme sole: a woman who has not the protection of a husband; an unmarried woman, a spinster, a widow. A married woman who with respect to property is as independent of her husband as if she were unmarried.
feodary: one who holds land of an overlord on condition of homage and service.
feoffment: the action of investing with a fief or fee applied especially to conveyance by livery of seisin; the deed or instrument by which corporeal hereditaments are conveyed.
field bed: a bedstead for use in the field, a bed upon the ground.
fifteenth: a tax of one fifteenth formerly imposed on personal property.
firkin: measure of capacity; small cask for butter originally containing quarter of a 'barrel' or half a 'kilderkin'.
flathe: fish; ray or skate.
fletcher: one who makes or deals in bows and arrows, or a bowman.
forcible detainer: see detainer.
foreprise: to take beforehand, to take for granted, to allow for, to forestall, anticipate.
forgery: the making of a thing in fraudulent imitation of something; especially the forging, counterfeiting, or falsifying of a document.
formedon: writs brought by persons who claimed land under a gift in tail when it was in the possession of a person not entitled to it.
frayle: basket made of rushes used for packing figs, raisins, etc.; the quantity of raisins etc. (30 to 75lb) contained in this.
frieze: coarse cloth with nap usually on one side only.
frith: a wooded piece.

ganneker: alehouse keeper.
garfish: fish with a spear like snout, also called green bone, horn fish and sea pike etc.
girt: to measure the girth of trees etc.
grange: an outlying farmhouse with barns etc. belonging to a monastery or a feudal lord, for storing tithes in kind etc.
greensward: turf on which grass is growing.
grist: corn to be ground.
groundsel: a timber serving as a foundation to carry a superstructure, especially a wooden building.
grydy iron/gridiron: griddle for cooking over fire, could be an open mesh of parallel bars.

habendum: part of a deed (beginning in law with the words habendum et tenendum, and in English 'to have and to hold') which defines what estate or interest is thereby granted.
hallowtide/hallowmas: first week in November.
handwarp: particular type of cloth.
hay: hedge.
heirloom: chattel that follows devolution of real estate.
hereditament: any kind of property that can be inherited; anything, corporeal or incorporeal, that in the absence of testamentary disposition descended to the heir at common law.
higgler: itinerant dealer, esp. carrier or huckster who buys up poultry and dairy produce, and supplies in exchange petty commodities from the shops in town.
holland: linen fabric names after north Netherland province.
hopkiln or hopkill: a kiln for drying hops; an oast.
Hugo (or Hugh) Hunt: fictional legal character in a recovery on account of whose actions a plea of disseisin is brought.

ides: the 15th of March, May, July, October and the 13th of the other months.
imparlance: an extension of time to put in a response in pleading a case, on the (real or fictitious) ground of a desire to negotiate for an amicable settlement; a continuance of the case to another day etc.
income: a fee paid on coming in or entering; an entry fine.
indemnify: keep free from hurt.
in extremis: at the point of death.
inquinate: to pollute, defile, corrupt.
interrogatories: written questions to elicit testimony put to witnesses and answered by depositions.
inure: to come into operation, to operate; to take or have effect.

jade: horse, usually used contemptuously of a worn out horse, or one of an inferior breed.
jelofer: gillyflower.
John Doe: name given to fictitious lessee of the plaintiff in the action of ejectment.
joint tenancy: the ownership of land in common by several persons where there is a right of survivorship.
John Doe: name given to fictitious lessee of the plaintiff in the action of ejectment.

keeler: vessel for cooling liquids, a shallow tub.
kneading trough: a wooden trough or tub in which to knead dough.

lammas: August 1st, in early English church a harvest festival in which loaves of bread made from the first ripe corn were consecrated.
latitat: a writ which supposed the defendant to lie concealed and which summoned him to answer in the Kings Bench.
laver: basin or bowl for washing.
leading: lead work in general.
lessee: a person to whom a lease is granted, a tenant under a lease.
letted: allowed.
libel: plaintiff's written declaration.
lind/lynde: lime tree.
line: linen cloth.
livery: the action of handing over, delivery of goods.
lockram: a linen fabric of various qualities, named after a village in Britanny where it was formerly made.

mader: root of plant used as medicine to purge the liver.
mainprise: the action of making oneself legally responsible for thefulfilment of a contract or undertaking by another; suretyship. Also, action of procuring the release of a prisoner by becoming surety (mainpernor) for his appearance in court at a specific time. To procure or grant the release of (a prisoner) by mainnprise.
makebate: a breeder of strife.
male veniendo: a ground for essoin.
mandate: judicial or legal command from superior commission to ask for another.
manteltree: beam across the opening of a fireplace serving as a lintel to support the masonry above.
manurance: tenure, occupation (of land), control, management, now only in law, cultivation of land tillage manuring.
maser or mazer: a maser dish is a bowl made of maple wood.
maslin/mislen: mixed grain esp. rye mixed with wheat.
math: a mowing.
meretrisham: harlot.
merling: fish, whiting.
messuage: originally the portion of land intended to be occupied, or actually occupied, as a site for a dwelling house and its appurtenances. Later used as a dwelling house with its out buildings and curtilage and the adjacent land assigned to its use. See capital messuage.
mill bill: a steel adze fixed in a wooden thrift for dressing and cracking millstones.
mockado: a kind of cloth used for clothing in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
molture: toll in kind paid to the miller for grinding corn; the right to exact this.
morass: bog, marsh.
mort d'ancestor: term applied to an assize brought by the right heir against one who wrongly took possession of his inheritance on the death of his ancestor.
moss: put between or under slates or tiles in building.
muniment: a document, a title deed etc., preserve of evidence of rights or privileges.

Naboth's vineyard: biblical reference to deceitful procurement of a vineyard.
needle: a beam or post of wood esp. one used as a temporary support for a wall during underpinning.
nephew: (obsolete) a niece or a descendant.
nisi prius: trial of civil cases by jury at assizes in the country.
nonage: the condition of being under age, the period of legal infancy, minority.
norfolks: type of sheep.
notary public: person publically authorized to draw up or attest contracts etc.
nuncupative: (of wills) oral, not written.
nurtriture: fostering, careful bringing up.

obit: memorial service.
oblation: the action of solemnly offering or presenting something to God; the offering of a sacrifice, of thanksgiving, or religious devotion.
obvention: an incoming fee or revenue, especially one of an occasional or incidental character.
orison: prayer.

pannage/pawnage: right of pasturage of swine.
parcein: seems to be a variant on parcenary, joint heirship.
pardial: belonging to God.
pauper: one allowed because of poverty to sue or defend in a court of law, without paying costs 'in forma pauperis'.
pesthouse: a hospital for persons suffering from any infectious disease.
placket: pocket especially in a woman's skirt opening in outer skirt.
planchering: planking, boarding, a floor or platform of planks.
plat: patch, plot, of ground.
poke: bag or sack.
posnet: a small metal pot for boiling having a handle and three feet.
postea: law. that part of the record of civil process which sets forth the proceedings at the trial and the verdict given.
prepositer: reeve.
press: a large cupboard, usually shelved, esp. one placed in a recess in the wall for holding clothes, books etc.
procurator: one who manages the affairs of another, an agent or attorney.
prorogation: the action of lengthening in duration extension of time; further continuance. The action of proroguing an assembly, especially Parliament. The time Parliament stands prorogued.
puke: superior kind of woollen cloth of which gowns were made.
pumgarnet: pomegranate.
purparty: a proportion, a share especially of an inheritance.
purport: that which is conveyed or expressed especially by a formal document.
purpresture: an enclosure, encroachment.
pry/prye: lime tree.
pyx: vessel in which the host or consecrated bread of the sacrament is reserved.

quillet: a small plot or narrow strip of land.
quinzaine: 15th day after any feast, the day of the feast itself being included in the reckoning.
quire: choir.
quit rent: usually due from tenants of manors in lieu and discharge of services.

rasure: act of shaving (the head etc.), tonsure.
receiver: a person appointed by a court to receive the rents and profits of real estate etc.
recognizance: formal acknowledgement of a debt or some other obligation, usually with sureties and penalties for breach of same.
recorder: magistrate or judge having criminal and civil jurisdiction in a city or borough.
regrater: a retailer, middleman.
rejoinder: second pleading of a defendant's cause in Chancery and made in response to the plaintiffs replication.
rent charge: a rent forming a charge upon lands etc. granted or reserved by deed to one who is not the owner, with a clause of distress in case of arrears.
rent seck: a rent reserved by deed in favour of some person without a clause of distress in case of arrears (abolished 1731).
rent service: personal service by which lands or tenements are held in addition to or in lieu of, money payment.
replevin: the restoration to, or recovery by a person, of goods or chattels distrained or taken from him upon his giving security to have the matter tried in a court of justice and return the goods if the case be decided against him; replevy, to bail out.
replication: second pleading of a plaintiff's cause in Chancery and made in response to the defendant's answer.
resolute: (of rents) paid.
Rich Roe: legal name of defendant against John Doe.
rive: to split or cleave wood etc.
rowen: the second growth or crop of grass or hay in a season.

sacristan: sexton.
sarsenet: fine soft silk material.
scantling: small piece of wood.
scire facies: a judicial writ, requiring the sheriff to warn the party concerned, to wit that he should come before the court to 'show cause' why execution should not be taken against him, or why letters patent, such as a charter, should not be revoked.
scutage: tax levied on knight's fee: chiefly such tax paid in lieu of military service.
seam: a packhorse load.
sequestrate: seizure, confiscation (of goods).
sere/sear: dry, withered.
severalty: property is said to belong to persons in severalty when the share of each is ascertained (so that he can exclude the others from it) as opposed to joint ownership, ownership in common, and coparcenery, where the owners hold individual shares.
shepene: obscure form of shippon, cowshed.
shett: (from the W. Flemish schet) a rail or bar.
shoat/shott/shett etc.: young weaned pig.
shrud: shred; to lop of branches of a tree; to prune.
sidesman: deputy churchwarden.
simpliciter: absolutely, without condition.
skep: basket or hamper.
sollar: an upper room or apartment in a house, in later use a loft, attic or garret.
sompner: 'he appeared and alleged that he had not done his penance for that the sompner was not present' official summoner (somner).
sorrel: bright chestnut colour.
sparring: the action of providing with spars.
spence: a room or separate place in which victuals and liquor are kept; a buttery or pantry.
spinster: a woman (rarely a man) who spins, especially one who practises spinning as a regular occupation. From the seventeenth century used as the proper legal designation of one still unmarried.
spirk: spire (tree) not pollarded or coppiced.
spray: small or slender twigs of trees or shrubs fused for fuel fine brushwood.
spurryall: money: 1588 16s, 1617 15s.
staddle: a stump left when underwood is cut.
stagnes: a pond, especially a fish pond.
standel: young tree left standing for timber.
stanty hedge: stake and rice fence.
statute merchant or statute staple: a bond or recognizance by which the creditor had the power of holding the debtor's lands in case of default.
stomacher: an ornamental covering for the chest, often covered with jewels, worn by women under the lacings of the bodice.
stope: container for wine, probably stoppered as in stople.
stover: broken straw etc.
strayle: woollen bedcovering, blanket.
strike: dry measure usually identical with a bushel but in some districts equal to two or four bushels.
stubbed: of trees, cut down to a stub, cut off near the ground; also deprived or branches or pollarded.
suborn: to bribe, induce or procure (a person) by underhand or unlawful means to commit a misdeed; especially to give false testimony or perjury.
subpoena: initial process of chancery requiring under pain that the defendant appear.
suivant: 'my lord of London's suivant', confidant.
superalter: a portable consecrated stone slab for use upon an unconsecrated altar, a table etc.
sur cognisance de droit come ceo que il ad de son done: a variety of fine, grantor called conusor and grantee called conusee. Whole process is described as levying a fine. In this type the conusor admits that the lands in question belong to the conusee on the grounds that he the conusor previously gave them to the conusee. Such a fine was said to be 'executed' this meant that since it is admitted that the lands are already the lands of the conusee there is no need for any livery of seisin to him.
sustentation: maintenance.
synod: an assembly of churchmen.

tally: cloven rod, as the official receipt formerly given by the Exchequer for a tax, tallage etc. paid, or in acknowledgement of a loan to the sovereign.
teller of Exchequer: one of the four officers of the Exchequer formerly charged with the receipt and payment of money.
tenancy in common: each tenant has distinct and separate title to his share and no right to survivorship as in joint tenancy.
tenant from year to year: one who holds under demise for a term.
tenter/taynter/tainter: rack for stretching skins.
tester: a canopy over a bed, supported on the posts of the bedstead or suspended from the ceiling, also could be headboard and fittings.
testis: latin word for witness.
tippler: a tapster, a tavern keeper
tippling: drinking intoxicating liquor.
thirdendeal: size of hooped pots for ale.
toft: the site of a house and its outbuildings.
tonsure: clipping of hedges.
trammel: net with three layers of mesh.
transom: frame usually of a window, could also be of a bed.
traverse: enclosed apartments (of houses).
traverse: the traversing or formal denial in pleading of some matter of fact alleged by the other side; also a plea consisting of this. To contradict formally; to deny at law.
trencher: flat piece of wood, square of circular, on which meat was served and cut up; a plate or platter.
trental: set of thirty successive daily services for the dead commencing thirty days after the funeral.
trowe: trough.
turnsole: a violet blue or purple colouring matter obtained from a plant formerly much used for colouring jellies, confectionery, wine etc.

utas: the octave of any feast.

vesture: clothing.
visitation: visit paid by a bishop or archdeacon to examine the state of a diocese, parish, or religious institution.

wallower: a trundle, lantern wheel.
waterfurrowing: a deep furrow made for conducting water from the land and keeping it dry.
wennels: animals newly weaned.
wey: (of cheese) for Essex 236lb, for Suffolk 356lb (in Harlakenden Accounts 25/9/1626 described as 252lb).
whelme/wholme: a wooden drainpipe, originally a tree trunk halved vertically hollowed and turned with the cavity downwards to form an arched water course.
withy: flexible branch of willow used for tying or any similar flexible branch twig.
wombe (of leather): the belly piece of a hide or skin.

ynde: blue dye obtained from India, indigo.