SCA Life

Award winning gardens of the Birr Castle Demesne.

I love words. I’ve said it before and I say it again. I iterate and reiterate. I LOVE words. So, today I present you with a list of some additional medieval words beginning with the letters D, E & F. The source for all spellings and definitions is “The Orb: On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies.” To read the previous selection of words, click here.

DANEGELD: Tribute originally paid to the Danes (Dane Gold); later the system of personal taxation used to finance the king’s activities.

DEMESNE: The part of the lord’s manorial lands reserved for his own use and not allocated to his serfs or free tenants. Serfs work the demesne for a specified numbers of days per week. The demesne may either be scattered among the serfs’ land, or a separate area, the latter being more common for meadow and orchard lands.

DEVSHIRME: The Ottoman Turkish term for the periodic levy of Christian boys, collected for training and recruitment into the Janissaries, the Imperial Household, and the administration

DIGIT: A measure of length equal to 10.48 mm.

DILATURA: Damages; a plea designed to create delay, generally founded upon some matter not connected with the merits of a case.

DOUBLE MONASTERY: Peculiar to England, a combined monastery for men and women, with separate sleeping quarters for them. Sometimes this took the form of two foundations side by side having their own buildings and cloisters but with a church in common. In either form both would be ruled in common by an abbot or abbess.

DUN: Scottish single family hill fort.

EDOR: Homestead, farmhouse.

EREMITICISM: The religious life as lived by hermits, individually or in groups (cf. “cenobiticism”).

ESCHEAT: The right of a lord to confiscate property held by a free tenant found guilty of a felony.

ESNE-WORKMAN: Laborer, servant.

EYRE (Latin Iter): The right of the king (or justices acting in his name) to visit and inspect the holdings of any vassal. This was done periodically, usually at irregular intervals of a few years. These were all-inclusive, comprehensive affairs, during which the powers of local officials such as sheriffs and coroners were suspended (and required to render account subject to heavy amercement). Large numbers of people would attend, to make account or to seek justice, and the justices would inquire into all manner of things–crimes and unexplained deaths, misconduct and negligence by officials, irregularities and shortcomings of all kinds, the feudal and fiscal rights of the Crown, and private disputes. Such eyres were known to provoke utter terror among the populace, many boroughs and counties preferring to pay heavily to ensure the eyre would not visit them (the 1233 Eyre of Cornwall caused most of the populace to flee to the woods to escape the eyre).

FAEHTH: Feud.

FAQIH: The doctors of the law in Islam are called faqih.

FEAXFANG: Seizing by the hair.

FIEF-RENT: Money paid by a lord to his vassal annually in return for homage, fealty, and military service (usually knight service), or perhaps a butt of wine, a wheel of cheese, an animal, or a cord of timber. This became more common in the later middle ages, under the system known as Bastard Feudalism.

FLYMANFYRMTH: Harboring a fugitive.

FOLKES-MOTE: Meeting of the folk or people in the shiremoot.

FORESPECA, FORSPRECA: Advocate.

FORFENGUS: Rescuing of stolen or strayed cattle.

FRAELLUS: A rush basket; also the quantity of figs or raisins in such a basket.

FRITH: Peace.

FRUMTYHTLE: First accusation.

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