GLOSSARY OF WORDS USED IN WILLS AND ESTATES
£ : Symbol for the English Pound Sterling (money); about $2.80 U.S. dollars (varies). There are 20 shillings in a pound, and 12 pence in a shilling. Shown sequentially as 36-15-06: 36 pounds, 15 shilling, & 6 pence. Sometimes noted as £36, 15s, & 6d. Today with the English in the decimal system they have 100 pence in a pound, and do not use shillings.
Appurtenances: a right, privilege, or improvement belonging to and passing with a principal property [law].
Assigns: a person to whom the property or interest of another is or may be transferred; my heirs and assigns [law].
Bay Horse: A small sturdy horse popular throughout the colonies, also known as the "everlaster". The bay horse was easy to ride and could be riden 50-60 miles a day while the horses in England could seldom do this. Also, the bay horse was only half as tiring to ride as the English horses.
Bequeath: To dispose by last will of personal property, especially money [law].
Bere: barley [Anglo-Saxon].
Bern: barn [Middle English & Anglo-Saxon].
Button Wood: A tall N American plane tree, yielding a useful timber: Has buttonlike fruit. Also called sycamore.
Bylle: Probably a billy, a policeman's club, or a small cudgel (a thick stick used as a weapon; a club).
Cop: caps: A conical mass of thread, etc, wound on a spindle.
Chambers: A room or apartment in a house, usually a private room, and especially a bedroom.
Chattel, Cattells: A moveable article of personal property, not real property such as land and buildings annexed to the land [law].
Cloathe: cloak. A loose short bell shaped outer garment wornover other cloths, both by men and women in the middle ages. Properly, a garment without sleeves.
Close: an enclosed place; commonly an enclosure; any piece of land held as private property. A piece of land held as private property, whether actually enclosed or not [law].
clothier. A clothier [cloth merchant] was a middleman who bought lengths of cloth from theCottage Weavers: dyed them if he had a woadhouse, sorted them for quality, baled them and marked them with his trademark (Ancestral Lines, by Carl Boyer, 3rd, New Hall, CA, 1981, p353). The term is also applied to merchants who sell cloths.
Cobord and Seles: cupboard and shelves.
Codicil: a supplement or an addition to a will: It may explain, modify, add to, subtract from, qualify, alter, restrain or revoke provisions of the existing will [law].
Comb: combe. coomb. A narrow valley or deep hollow, especially one enclosed on all side but one [Anglo Saxon].
Consistory: A place of assembly, a council, from consistere, to stand together: A place of meeting; a council house or place of justice [Latin]. Consistory Court. In England, the courts of diocesan bishops held in their Cathedrals for trail of eccliseastical causes, and for granting probates and administrations.
Copiehold: copyhold. Formerly, a type of ownership of land in England, evidenced by a copy of the manor roll establishing the title [law].
Corne: corn. The generic name for seeds of the small cereal grains, such as wheat, oats, rye and barley [English].
Counter Table: A table or board on which money is counted. The exchequer, the table cover marked with squares on which accounts were reckoned with counters [colloq].
Cricket: a small, low footstool [origin obscure].
Croft: a small piece of enclosed ground next to the dwelling house, used for tillage, pasture, etc [British & Scotish, obsolete].
Customary Freehold: Title evidenced by court rolls which declares the title to be according to the custom of the manor, but not at the will of the lord of the manor [law].
Customary Sette: probably the same as customary freehold.
Danske: Danish [obsolete]).
Date: e.g Jan 20, 1589/90. The first year is the old calendar (Julian, established by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C.) and the second year is the new calendar (Gregorian, established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582). The Julian calendar year started with the month of March, whereas the Gregorian calendar started with January. It was common to show both years for awhile after implementation. England, and the American Quakers did not accept the new calendar until 1752.
Demise: A death or decease occasioning the transfer of an estate [obsolete].
Devise: a testamentary disposing of property, especially real property, by will [law].
Doublet: A close-fitting outer garment that is stuffed and quilted, covering the body from the neck to a little below the waist. It was introduced from France into England in the 15th century, and was worn by both sexes and all ranks until the time of king Charles II (1660-1685), when it was replaced by the vest or waistcoat. It was also worn as a pad under armour in the middle ages. [Middle English]
Dowry: The money, goods, or estate which a women brings to the husband at marriage.
Driftland: a tribute made by tenants to the King or their landlords, for driving cattle through a manor to fairs or markets [law].
Driftway: drift way. A common way for driving cattle in.
Dystrayn: distrain. To seize for debt; to transfer (a personal chattle) from the possession of a wrong doer to the possession of the injured party [law].
Edifice(s): a structure, especially one of imposing appearance, as a temple, a church, a public building, or a fine massive house [French].
Esquire: (1) In England a title of dignity next above gentleman and below knight. The title of office given to sheriffs, serjeants [sergeants], lawyers and justices of the peace. (2) In the USA a title appended after the name in addressing letters, is bestowed on any person at pleasure, and contains no definite description. It is merely an expression of respect.
Feoffee: a person invested with fief. Fief: A fee or feud, or estate in land held of a feudal lord; a tenure of land subject to feudal obligations [old French].
Flock: wool refuse, shearings of cloth, old cloth torn to pieces, etc, used for stuffing mattresses, upholstered furniture, etc.
Free Copy: ?
Freehold: an estate for life in fee simple (owned absolute without limitations) [law].
Fyndyngs: findings. A decision or verdict after judicial inquiry [law].
Gentleman: In England, a man of good family or good social position; every man above the rank of yeoman, including nobleman; in a more limited sense, a man who without a title bears a coat of arms, or whose ancestors have been freeman; in this sense gentlemen hold a middle rank between the nobility and the yeomanry.
Goodes: goods: A valuable possession or piece of property; equivalent to wares, merchandise, movables, chattels, and personal property in general. In England goods is used of commodities in transit.
Grograine: grogram, gros-grain [old French]. Formerly, a kind of coarse stuff made of silk and mohair which was stout and close woven; also a kind of strong coarse silk that was sometimes ribbon corded from selvedge to selvedge.
Hereditaments: any inheritable estate or interest in real or personal property [law].
Hors: horse [Middle English & Anglo Saxon].
Hosen: hose or stockings [Archaic].
Imprimis: abbreviated Imps. First in order [Latin].
issue. Offspring or progeny.Keyne: probable the same as kinde [cattle].
Kinde: kind: A natural class or group of animals or plants [Middle English].
Kine: cow [obsolete].
Kirtle: a women's gown or skirt, a tunic or petticott used 14th-17th centuries [archaic].
Kiver: clover [obsolete].
Ladie Day: Lady Day. (1) The Spring quarter day, when quarterly rents and accounts are due [British]. (2) The day of the annunciation of the Virgin Mary, March 25: It is one of the immovable festivals of the Anglican church.
Manor: A landed estate or territorial unit, origin of the nature of a feudal lordship consisting of a lord's demesne (lands reserved for his own use) and of lands within which he has the right to exercise privilages and exact certain fees, etc [England].
Manor House: the house or mansion of the lord of a manor.
Meat: mete. Food in general [anglo-saxon].
Messuage: A dwelling house with its adjacent buildings and the lands appropriated to the use of the household [law].
Mony Plate: unknown. (1) Could be like todays petty cashbox or account, a method of having small amounts of cash readily on hand. (2) Plate means silver money; silver [obsolete].
Neat: cattle of the bovine genus: bulls, oxen, cows [obsolete].
Netherr: nether; lower or under [old English].
Oadhouse: see woadhouse.
Osenbrig: a heavy linen used for britches etc.
Outhouse(s): (1) An outbuilding. (2) An outside privy.
Pannes & Leads: leaded glass windows.
Parlour: parlor. A room for the reception and entertainment of vistors: a living room.
Prentyshode: prentice-hood: Apprenticeship.
Pretious: pretiosus from pretium, price [Latin]. Precoius.
Quarters: (1) A unit of weight, the fourth part of hundred weight; 25 or 28 pounds [British]. (2) A measure of capacity for grain, etc, equal to 8 bushels, more or less [British].
Raiment: clothing [archaic].
Reparacons, Repacons, Reporacion, Reparation: (1) The act of repairing or restoring. [Rare]. (2) Making payments or amends for wrong or injury done.
Rapier: a double bladed sword.
Revercions, Reversion: (1) Act of turning something the reverse way. (2) The returning of an estate to the grantor or his heirs after the interest granted expires [law].
Rood: (1) A unit of length varying locally from 5 to 8 yards. (2) A unit of land measurement, equal to 40 square rods or 1/4 acre. (3) A "rod" is a linear measurement of 5 yards or 16 feet.
Seame(s): A sack of eight bushels, also the vessel that contains it: A horse-load (pack saddle) [English].
Scole: School [obsolete].
Score: a group or set of twenty.
Soller: sollar, [Latin = solarium]. A gallery or balcony exposed to the sun. A garret or upper room [obsolete].
SS: Abbreviated form of scilicet [latin]. Used in that part of a record pleading, or affifavit, called the "statement of the venue." Commonly translated or read, "to-wit" [that is to say]. (From Black's Law Dictionary, 5th edition)
Taynter: taintor, a dyer [obsolete].
Tenements: any house or building to live in: dwelling house. Could also be apartments.
Weyes: a path or road [obsolete].
Woad: A plant formerly cultivated in Europe and Great Britain for the blue dye extracted from its leaves [Middle & Old English]. The word "oad" is an form of woad [obsolete]. France and Germany, because their farmers grew woad, strongly rejected the use of indigo from India that produced the same blue color, even though indigo had a coloring potential 30 times more potent than woad. However, England and Holland embraced the use of indigo because woad was not one of their major crops. England was the major exporter of indigo to Europe from India in the 18th & 19th centuries. Most of todays indigo is a synthetic product.
Woadhouse: oadhouse. Place used to dye cloth.
Yeoman: (1) One of a class of lessor freeholders (below the gentry) who cultivated their own land, early admitted in England to political rights [archaic]. (2) An independent farmer often praised for sturdiness and loyality [British].
