ACRE: A land measurement of 4,840 square yards, or 160 rods. 1/120th of a hide.
ADVOWSON: Patronage of an ecclesiastical office or benefice; the right of presentation to a benefice.
ALIENATE: To transfer to the ownership of another.
AMERCEMENT: To be at the mercy of any one as to amount of a financial penalty; to be punished by an arbitary fine.
APPURTENANCE: A right, privilege, or property that is considered incident to the principal property for purposes such as passage of title, conveyance, or inheritance.
ARGENT (heraldic colour): Silver, or white.
ASSART: To grub up trees and bushes from forest-land, so as to make it arable.
ASSIGNMENT: Legal transferance of a right or property. The action of appointing as a share, allotment.
ATTAINDER: The legal consequence of judgement of death or outlawry, in respect of treason or felony, viz forfeiture of estate real and personal; corruption of blood, so that the condemned could neither inherit nor transmit by descent; and generally, extinction of all civil rights and capacities.
AZURE (heraldic colour): Blue.
BAILIFF: Agent of the Lord of the Manor.
BARTON: A farm-yard. A demesne farm; the demesne lands of a Manor, not let out to tenants, but retained for the Lord's own use.
BEND (heraldic): A broad diagonal band running across a shield from the top left (dexter chief) to the bottom right (sinister base).
BOOT: The right of a tenant to take timber, etc. for repairs, firing, and other necessary purposes from off the landlord's estate; common of estovers.
BORDAR: Derived from the Frankish word for 'wooden hut'; and those so named formed almost half the population of Dorset. They were cultivators of inferior status, being generally listed after the Villeins, but before the Cotars. They frequently held land as well as ploughs, and could thus be termed smallholders. As such they probably owed their Lords some form of labour service. According to local custom this service could be, for instance, one day a week throughout the year, or three days a week during the harvest period. A smallholder, usually holding between five and fifteen acres in a MANOR; but sometimes identical with a COTTAGER.
BRAKE: An area overgrown with dense brushwood, briars; undergrowth; thicket.
BURGAGE: A tenure whereby lands or tenements in cities and towns were held of the King or other Lord, for a certain yearly rent. A house or other property held by a burgage tenure.
CARUCATE: The equivalent of the HIDE (q.v.), both as a unit of 120 acres for assessing Danegeld in the Domesday Book, and as a real land measure, in the Danelaw. Also used elsewhere in England in Domesday Book as a real measure of land exempt from Danegeld.
CHAMFER: A building term for a small groove, channel, gutter, furrow, such as may be cut in wood or stone. Also the surface produced by bevelling off a square edge or corner equally on both sides; if made concave, it is called a hollow or concave chamfer. A stop-chamfer is an ornamental termination to a chamfer.
CHANCERY: Royal Secretariate of late Angl-Saxon and subsequent medieval Kings.
CHARTER: A formal document witnessing the grant of land or of special privileges by a Lord, especially the King, to a Vassal.
CLERK: A man ordained to the ministry or service of the Christian Church; a churchman, clergyman, or ecclesiastic. Now termed as 'cleric'. See also PARISH CLERK.
CLOSE: An enclosed field; an enclosure about or beside a building; a court, yard, quadrangle, etc. CLOSE ROLLS: Records from 1204 of deeds, conveyances between individuals, sales of lease and release and many other transactions. Kept at The National Archives, though extensively published.
COPPICE (OR COPSE): A small wood or thicket consisting of underwood and small trees grown for the purpose of periodic cutting.
COPYHOLD: Tenure so called because each tenant would be given a copy of the entry in the Manor Court Roll recording his/her succession. Freehold (q.v.) was in time to become the norm, although the last vestiges of the copyhold system survived until the 20th century.
COTAR or COTTAGER: A person normally holding a cottage and up to four acres of land in a Manor; or sometimes no land.
COURT BARON: Court of freeholders of the Manor, normally presided over by the Steward or Bailiff.
COURT LEET: Court of the Manor which determined minor crimes and civil affairs within the Manor, presided over by the Steward or Bailiff.
COVERT: A thicket; thick underbrush or woodland, providing cover and shelter for game.
CRESCENT (heraldic): See MULLET.
CRENDLE or CRUNDLE: A quarry or pit. (O.E. Claeg = clay)
CROFT: A piece of enclosed ground, used for tillage or pasture: in most localities a small piece of arable land adjacent to a house.
CRUSIAL or CRUISILY (heraldic): Strewn with crosslets.
DANEGELD: A land tax levied by the Anglo-Saxons on the CARACUTE or HIDE, originally to buy off Danish attacks on late Anglo-Saxon England. But by Stephen's reign (1135-1154) Danegeld seems to have become a settled and regular annual tax.
DEFORCIANT: A person who by force or violence deprives a person wrongfully out of rightful possession of an estate.
DEMESNE: The land in a Manor held by its Lord, and worked by his men for his benefit, or held on lease from him; the later 'home farm'.
DEMISE: To give, grant, convey, or transfer (an estate) by will or by lease.
EASEMENT: A right, such as a right of way, afforded a person to make limited use of another's real property. The right one landowner has been granted over the land of another, as to the right of access to water, right of way, etc. at no charge.
ENFRANCHISE: To set free from political subjection. To release from obligatory payments, legal liabilities, etc. To enfranchise a copyhold or leasehold estate is to convert it into freehold.
ESCHEATOR: A royal official administering the lands of any Tenant-in-Chief which were in royal custody because he was a minor, or had committed a major offence.
ESSOIN: The allegation of an excuse for non-appearance in a court at the appointed time. The excuse itself.
ESTOVERS: Necessaries allowed by law, especially wood which a tenant is privileged to take from his landlord's estate so far as is necessary for repairing his house, hedges, implements, etc.
FEALTY: The oath of fidelity/loyalty sworn to a Lord by his Vassal after the Lord had accepted the Vassal's Homage.
FEEDINGS: Grazing-ground or pasture land. Pasturage, feeding-ground.
FEOFF: To put in legal possession (properly confined to freehold interests in corporeal hereditaments; formerly sometimes inaccurately used of leasehold). To confer (a heritable possession) upon.
FERLING (farthing): Quarter of a virgate.
FIREBOOT: The right of a tenant to take fire-wood from off the landlord's estate.
FITCHY (heraldic): Terminating in a point, usually applied to the lower limb of a cross.
FOREST: Usually thought of as a huge wood, but in the context of this History is a woodland district, usually belonging to the King, set apart for hunting wild beasts and game, etc., having special laws and officers of its own.
FRANK-ALMOIGN: Free alms. Tenure by divine service, or by the performance of some religious duty. Ther tenure of lands, etc. bestowed upon God, that is given to such people as bestow themselves in the service of God, for pure and perpetual alms; whence the feoffers or givers cannot demand any territorial service, so long as the lands remain in the hands of the feoffee. Perpetual tenure by free gift of charity.
FRANKLIN: A freeman or yeoman. In the 14th/15th centuries the designation of a class of landowners, of free but not noble birth, and ranking next below the gentry.
FURLONG: An area of land. Furlongs were originally groups of strips such as may be seen on 16th century maps. Each furlong had its name, and possibly names of owners of the strips. Later it became a measure of length of 220 yards. An area of land a furlong each way is 10 acres.
GATEBOOT: The right of cutting wood for making gates.
GROAT: Silver coin first minted in 1351/2, made equal to fourpence (4d). Ceased to be called groat in 1662.
GULES (heraldic colour): Red.
GURNARDE: A great pot or jug to carry liquids or corn.
HEREDITAMENT: Any kind of property that can be inherited.
HERIOT: A feudal service of a render of the best live beast or dead chattel of a deceased tenant due by legal custom to the Lord of whom he held. In some exceptional cases it is also due on the changes of tenants, and even on the entry of a new Lord.
HIDE: Originally a unit varying between 40 and 1,000 acres, thought sufficient to support one family. In the Domesday Book a fiscal unit on which Danegeld was levied (q.v.), and generally reckoned to contain 120 acres, though open to variation in practice. It was a measure of tax liability, often differing in number from the hides actually cultivated.
HOMAGE: Act of submission by a new Vassal to his Lord.
HUNDRED: A unit of fiscal assessment and local government outside the Danelaw, originally containing 100 hides, intermediate between the county and the Manor, roughly equivalent in size to the modern District. It usually met once a month.
IMPEDIENT: That impedes or hinders; obstructive, hindering. An impeding or hindering agent.
IN MERCY: The clemency or forbearance of a conqueror or absolute lord, which it is within his power to extend or withold as he thinks fit.
KALENDS: Refers to debts and interest being due; settling day. First day of any month, e.g. 27th May was termed 'The sixth kalends of June.'
KNIGHT'S FEE or KNIGHT'S SERVICE: Providing a certain number of knights to fight in the King's army. The obligation seems to have been regarded as being to serve as a soldier, in England, for 40 days a year.
LEASEHOLD: Tenure of land held usually for a year at a time in the medieval period, but for longer terms later.
LEAZE: Pasture; pasturage; meadow-land; common.
LIME: The alkaline earth which is the chief constituent of mortar: calcium oxide (CaO). It is obtained by submitting limestone (carbonate of lime) to red heat, by which the carbonic acid is driven off, leaving a brittle-white solid, which is pure lime (or quick lime). Used as a manure, and in building processes.
LIME-KILN: A kiln in which lime is made by calcining limestone.
LIME-PIT: A limestone quarry. A pit in which lime is burnt.
LINSEY-WOOLSEY: A textile material woven from a mixture of wool and flax. Now a dress material of coarse inferior wool, woven upon a cotton warp. Also pieces or kinds of this material. In a figurative context, especially a strange medly in talk or action; confusion, nonsense.
LIVERY: The legal delivery of property into a person's possession.
LORD: A feudal superior of a Vassal. Always a Manorial Lord.
LUG: Measure of length. A pole or perch, varying according to local custom; usually of 16 1/2 feet. Sometimes of 15, 18, 20 or 21 feet.
MAINPRIS (or MAINPRIZE): To suffer a prsioner to go ate large, on his finding sureties (or mainpernors), for his attendance at a day.
MANOR: A landed estate, usually comprising a Demesne and lands held by villagers, Bordars or Cottagers, and sometimes also by Free Men, which could vary in size from part of one village to several villages over a wide area. Power over men and women, ranging from civil to criminal jurisdiction. An estate in land giving authority and prestige; a land title giving superiority and gentility.
MARK or MARC: A denomination of weight at the time of gold and silver, usually of 8 ounces. The value of the silver mark was 13s 4d, but there was no coin which represented that sum.
MARL: A kind of soil consisting primarily of clay mixed with carbonate of lime, forming a loose unconsolidated mass, valuable as a fertilizer.
MEAD: Meadow. A piece of land permanently covered with grass which is mown for use as hay. In later use often extends to include any piece of grass land, whether used for cropping or pasture.
MEAR or MERE: A boundary; also an object indicating a boundary, a landmark. A green 'balk', or a road serving as a boundary.
MESNE TENANT: A Vassal of a Tenant-in-Chief.
MESSUAGE: Originally the portion of land intended to be occupied, or actually occupied, as a site for a dwelling housed with its appurtrenances. In modern legal language, a dwelling-house with its outbuildings and curtilageand nthe adjacent land assigned to its use.
MISSAL: The Book containing the service of the Mass for the whole-year; a mass book.
MOIETY: In legal terms a half, one of two equal parts. Loosely, one of two parts (not necessarily equal) into which something is divided.
MULLET (heraldic device): 5-pointed star, sometimes added to shields as a deflecting device, but later for arnamentation. Similarly with a CRESCENT as found on the Hannam arms.
MUNTIN: A building term for a central vertical piece between two panels, the side pieces being called stiles.
MURAGE: A toll or tax levied for a building or repairing of the walls of a town. The building of walls.
OBVENTION: That which comes to one incidentally; in Ecclesiastical Law, an incoming fee or revenue, especially one of an occasional or incidental character.
OR (heraldic colour): Gold, or yellow.
ORISON: A prayer; the action of praying; a speech, oration.
OUSTER: The act of forcing one out of possession or occupancy of material property to which one is entitled; illegal or wrongful possession.
OYER AND TERMINER: Terms used in England in commissions directed to judges of assize about to hold court, directing them to hear and determine cases brought before them.
PALE (heraldic): A vertical band running down the centre of the shield.
PATENT ROLLS: A parchment roll containing the letters patent issued in England in any one year. A patent being a document conferring some privilege, right, office, etc.
PATRON: One who holds the right of presentation to an ecclesiastical benefice. The holder of an Advowson.
PERCH: A land measurement of 5 1/2 yards linear, with a square perch of 30.25 square yards. Though a 20 foot perch in use for measuring woodland until 1800s. From the Latin pertica meaning pole or measuring rod.
PIPE ROLLS: Basically accounts (c.1120-1830s) rendered by the sheriffs to the Exchequer with details of Crown revenues from rents, etc. Kept at The National Archives, but have been extenively published (see CHAPTER 5).
PLEPASTURE: Probably a misspelling of PURPRESTURE (see below).
PLOUGH: A team of six to twelve oxen, yoked in pairs, pulling a plough. In the Domesday Book it was usually eight oxen. A Plough was also used as a measurement (Caracuta) as to how much land a team could manage, depending on the type of soil.
PLOUGHBOOT: The right of tenants to cut wood for making or repairing ploughs and other agricultural implements.
POLE: See PERCH.
PONTAGE: A toll paid for the use of a bridge. A tax paid for the maintenance and repair of a bridge or bridges. Bridge-toll.
PORTIONER: Heir- or Heiress Portioner = one of two or more heirs female who succeed to equal portions of a heritage in default of heirs male; or the son or other male representative of such joint-heiress.
PRESENTMENT: To introduce into court.
PURPRESTURE: An illegal enclosure of, or an encroachment upon the land or property of another; as by an enclosure or building in royal, manorial, or common lands, or in the royal forests; an encroachment on a highway, public waterway, etc. A payment or rent paid to a feudal superior for liberty to enclose land or erect any building upon it.
QUARENTEN: A lineal or square measure containing 40 poles; a furlong of 220 yards.
QUIT RENT: A rent, usually of a small amount, paid by a freeholder or copyholder in lieu of services which might be required of him.
RECTORY: A benefice held by a rector. Rector: a parson or incumbent of a parish whose tithes are not impropriate (as with a vicar, where the tithes are generally appropriated to some particular lay person or persons).
RENT OF ASSIZE: A fixed rent.
REPRISE(S): Re. rents. To take or hold back out of a sum. To compensate a person. To recoup.
ROD: A land measurement of 40 square perches or poles.
SABLE (heraldic colour): Black.
SCUTAGE: A tax levied on Knight's Fees; chiefly in restricted sense, such as a tax paid in lieu of military service by Vassals.
SEISE(D): To put in possession, invest with the fee simple of. To put (a person) in legal possession of a feudal holding; to invest or endow with property. To be in legal possession of.
SERF: A slave, bondman; a person in a condition of servitude or modified slavery, distinguished from what is properly called 'slavery' in that the services due to the master, and his power of disposal of his 'serf'', are more or less limited by law and custom.
SERJEANCY: A form of feudal tenure on condition of rendering some specified service to the King.
SEQUESTERED: Separated, deprived of, dispossessed; confiscate, divert or appropriate income of property to satisfaction of claims against its owner.
STADDLE: A young tree left standing when others are cut down. Also the root or stump of a tree that has been felled.
STEWARD: One who administers another's property or estate. The Steward of a Lord of the Manor would normally officiate at a Manor Court on the Lord's behalf.
STILEBOOT: Wood allowed by a Lord for making a stile.
SUITOR: One who owed suit to a court, and in that capacity acted as an assessor or elector.
SUZERAIN: Feudal Lord.
TENANT-IN-CHIEF: A Lord holding his land directly from the King.
TENEMENT: A building or house to dwell in; a dwelling-place, a habitation, residence, abode.
THANE or THEGN: A Vassal, usually a Manorial Lord, holding land by military or administrative services in Anglo-Saxon and early Norman England.
TOFT: A homestead, the site of a house and its out-buildings. Applied to a field or piece of land larger than the site of a house.
TURBARY: A Manorial right to cut turf.
VALUE: Normally meant the sums due to Lords from the holders' lands.
VASSAL: A feudal inferior of tenant, or a Mesne Tenant, of a Tenant-in-Chief or of the King.
VERT (heraldic colour): Green.
VILL: A territorial unit or division under a feudal system, consisting of a number of houses or buildings, with their adjacent lands, more or less continguous and having a common organisation; corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon tithing and to the modern township or civil parish.
VILLATE: A feudal territorial division consisting of a number of vills.
VILLEIN: A comprehensive term to cover most classes of population in a village, usually those with more land than a Bordar.
VIRGATE: A fraction of a Hide, usually a quarter, notionally 30 acres.
WARREN: A piece of land enclosed and preserved for breeding game. Free warren was a right of keeping or hunting beasts and fowls of warren.
WASTE: Lord's waste is roadside strips, and odds and ends of unoccupied land.
WAYWARDEN: As early as 1776 a person elected to supervise the highways of a parish. From 1862 (under 25 & 26 Victoria, c.61, sectrion 9) 'The Highway Board shall consist of the Waywardens elected in the several Places within the District.'
WITAN: Anglo-Saxon and early Norman Royal Council.
WOOD: A collection of trees growing more or less thickly together, of considerable extent, usually larger than a coppice and smaller than a forest.
ABBREVIATIONS, ETC. USED
DHC Dorset History Centre, Dorchester (formerly Dorset Record Office).
DNHAS Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society.
OE Old English.
SDNQ Somerset & Dorset Notes and Queries
SRO Somerset Record Office, Taunton.
TNA The National Archives (formerly Public Record Office), Kew, London.WSRO Wiltshire & Swindon Record Office, Chippenham.
Omissions have been shown as . . .
Words inserted by the author into quoted text are printed within square brackets [ ].
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