Glossary

This is an alphabetical glossary containing terms that you may find used in Warwickshire's Past Unlocked. Click on the appropriate letter below to go to the section of the glossary that you require.

If you are unable to locate the word that you are looking for, then please do not hesitate to contact us and let us know.

If you would like to know of more terms within the category of your term, then please go to the glossary by category

A . B . C . D . E . F . G . H . I . L . M . N . O . P . Q . R . S . T . V . W . Y

A
Term	Meaning
Advowson	The right to nominate a clergyman to a benefice, often subject to the approval of a diocesan bishop.
Affidavit	A sworn statement made in the presence of a person qualified to receive it
Alienation	Transferring ownership of something to someone else
Amercements	Fine paid in a manorial court
AnyText	Your search term, i.e. the word or word(s) that you enter in the AnyText box on the Search the Catalogue page. The software will search every field of every record for the term that you have specified.
Appurtenance	A minor property, right or privilege belonging to a greater property: an appendage.
Aquittance	A written discharge from a debt or obligation
Arable	Cultivated land (usually ploughed)
Assignee	Someone appointed to act on behalf of someone else; a representative
Assize	A royal court of justice presided over by a judge responsible for trying serious criminal and civil cases in a group of counties (known as a circuit). Assizes were held several times a year in each assize town within the circuit (normally one per county) from the 14th century until 1971 when they were replaced by the Crown Court.
Assizes of Bread and Ale	A process that took place in manorial courts to ensure that bakers and brewers sold goods of proper quality and quantity.
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B
Term	Meaning
Banns	The published intention of marriage which are announced on three Sundays before the actual ceremony in the parish.
Bargain and Sale	A method of conveying property by private agreement, common in the 16th century. The name is also given to the deed recording the transaction
Barring an entail	Preventing an entail from taking effect
Bastardy	A term used widely in legal proceedings referring to children born out of wedlock.
Benefice	An ecclesiastical office, or the income derived from it. It is usually applied to the incumbency of a parish church.
Bridewell	Former name for a house of correction
Bull (papal)	A written mandate of a pope of a more serious nature than a brief. In early times sealed with the pope's signet ring, but later by a special form of lead seal, called the "bulla".
Bundle	A group of documents, often tied together and described as one unit.
Burgage	The house or plot of land held by the inhabitant of a town or borough OR a tenure of land in an ancient borough.
Burgess	A citizen of a borough, with full municipal rights.
Butt	A short or irregularly shaped strip of land in an open (pre-enclosure) field, or one that lies at right angles to other strips.
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C
Term	Meaning
Catalogue	A list of documents, mainly from one collection, giving their reference number, brief description of their composition and content and their date.
Census	A population survey. In England and Wales, a census has been held every 10 years from 1801, but it is only since 1841 that names of the inhabitants were systematically recorded.
Chancery	A Central Court specialising in equity cases, often relating to inheritance, debts and land ownership.
Chantry	A chapel inside a church, or on its own site, funded by a wealthy person in exchange for the perpetual saying of mass for the funding family
Chattels	Personal Property
Chirurgeon	Surgeon
Churchwarden	A parish officer responsible for the upkeep of the church fabric, accounting for the expenditure of the church rate, control and extermination of vermin, etc.
Clergy	The body of all those appointed to the Christian ministry.
Close	A small hedged or walled field; an enclosure from the open fields
Codicil	A signed and witnessed addition to a will
Collection	All records (which could include a number of accessions) deposited by a single individual or body.
Common Recovery	A method used to bar an entail, involving fictitious legal proceedings
Consistory Court	A church court
Constable	This officer was the keeper of law and order in the parish. Appointed by the parish vestry meeting he served for one year, unpaid. The office was replaced by the establishment of a county police force in the mid-19th century.
Constablewick	A township or tithing under the jurisdiction of a constable.
Conveyance	A general term for a deed which transfers land
Copyhold	Tenure of manorial land, with obligations to perform certain services for the lord. Copyhold tenure was abolished in 1922.
Counterpart	One of two identical documents prepared as part of a deed or lease. The counterpart is executed by the grantee, who then exchanges this for the original part executed by the grantor.
Court Baron	A manorial court which enforced the customs of the manor, and dealt with land transfers, agricultural management, etc.
Court of Augmentations	A court set up during the reign of Henry VIII to administer former monastic lands.
Court Baron	A manorial court which enforced the customs of the manor, and dealt with land transfers, agricultural management, etc.
Court Leet	A manorial court which handled petty offences such as common nuisances or public affray, or the breaking of the Assize of Bread and Ale, and also with the maintenance of highways and ditches.
Covenant	An agreement creating an obligation contained in a deed.
Croft	(i) A small piece of enclosed land near a dwelling. (ii) A small dwelling.
Curate	An assistant of a beneficed clergyman.
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D
Term	Meaning
Dateofcopy	This field is most often used in descriptions of photographs. Some of the photographs in our collection are copies of much older images. The date of the photograph's content is recorded in the date field and the dateofcopy field is used to record the date that the reproduction was made.
Decretal	Concerning a decree, (a decision backed by force of law)
Defeasance	Rendering something null and void
Deforciant/s	A person who wrongfully keeps another out of an estate
Demesne/Demesnes	Land retained by the lord of the manor for his own use, or which was part of the main farm of the manor.
Demise	To convey a property by lease.
Depositor	The individual or body who owns or is responsible for the records.
Devisee	A beneficiary of a will
Diaconate	Managed by a deacon or deacons
Disburse	To pay out or expend
Distrain/Distreint	A term originally applied to the seizure of possessions, generally livestock, in compensation for an alleged breach of feudal service obligations.
DocRefNo	This stands for Document Reference Number and is a unique number that we assign to all documents.
Document Production	The process by which documents are retrieved from the strongrooms for consultation in the searchroom.
Donative	Something that is given (normally referring to a benefice)
Dorse	The reverse side of a document.
Dower	Part of an estate that a widow can claim for the rest of her life, or until her re-marriage
Driftway	A road along which cattle or horses are driven to pasture or market
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E
Term	Meaning
EAD	Encoded Archival Description. A computer language used to display archival catalogues on the internet.
Enclosure	The process of dividing land previously held in common into individual holdings.
Encroachment	The extension of private property enclosing part of a green, common or another person's land.
Entail	Settlement of the inheritance of a landed estate, so that future generations cannot bequeath or alienate it at pleasure.
Executrix	A female person appointed by the testator to carry out the intentions of the will.
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F
Term	Meaning
Faculties	A licence or authorisation issued by a senior ecclesiastical official. Often issued to authorise building work in parish churches
Fee simple	Freehold land which can be disposed of according to the wishes of the owner.
Feoffee	i) Someone who holds a feudal tenure known as a fief, or ii) A trustee
Feoffment	The public transfer of land by the owner to the purchaser, consisting of the ceremony called "livery of seisin". The written record of this transaction became known as a charter or deed of feoffment.
Filiation	1. A persons parentage. 2. In effect, an order for the maintenance of an illegitimate child. Following on from a single woman naming the putative father of her child, churchwardens or overseers of the poor made application to the Justices of the Peace requiring the father (sometimes the mother) to pay maintenance to the parish, for so long as the child was chargeable to the parish. As part of the process, a warrant of apprehension could be issued in order to bring the putative father before JPs, prior to the filiation order being made.
Fine/Final Concord	An agreement made as a result of a fictitious suit, in order to confirm the possession or conveyance of land OR (Fine only) money paid for a lease or admission to copyhold land.
Fither	A small strip of land between two ridges.
Foldyard	An enclosure for sheep.
Fonds	An alternative name for a collection. All records (which could include a number of accessions) deposited by a single individual or body.
FondsNo	An artificial number that we use to group together all of the items in a collection. This number is also used to build the tree.
Foredraft/foredraught/foredrift	A land leading from a dwelling to a road or field.
Frankpledge	A manorial system whereby groupings of 10 to 12 households (known as tithings) were held jointly responsible for the behaviour of each member. At the manorial Court Leet, a View of Frankpledge would regulate the working of the tithings.
Furlong	Originally a furrow's length in a ploughed field later (1) a unit of length, 220 yards or 201 metres (2) a block of strips of land in an open (pre-enclosure) field.
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G
Term	Meaning
Glebe	Land held by the incumbent (i.e. the rector or vicar) of a parish.
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H
Term	Meaning
Hade	Uncultivated land at the end of a block of strips of land, giving room for a horse-drawn plough to turn.
Handbill	Single page printed notice or advertisement
Headland	Uncultivated land at the end of a block of strips of land, giving room for a horse-drawn plough to turn.
Hereditaments	Any property which may be inherited.
Heriot	A feudal obligation which has evolved over time. Most commonly, this refers to the practice whereby the heir to a deceased copyhold tenant has to give his best beast to the lord of the manor or, later, a money payment. In effect, it comprises a fee to enter copyhold land
Highway Surveyors	An Act of 1555 required the annual appointment at Easter of a 'Surveyor of the Highways' for each parish or township. The unpaid officer was empowered to raise local rates and had a particular responsibility for the supervision of statue labour, whereby local people were called upon to maintain their roads. In 1835 a new system was introduced whereby Justices of the Peace appointed paid surveyors for groups of parishes.
Holm	A pasture of water meadow.
Homage	A ceremonial pledge of loyalty and obligation made by a tenant to his lord or a collective term for the assembly of tenants at a manorial court
Homestall	Another word for homestead, or, a farmyard
Housebote	The right to take wood from common land for building or repairing buildings
House of Correction	A county prison originally intended for lesser offenders: vagrants, beggars and prostitutes. It attempted to reform them through hard labour etc. However, the Court appears to have used it interchangeably with the Gaol when sentencing offenders.
Hundred	An administrative division of a shire, the influence of which declined as parishes, manors and judicial bodies became more important. They were probably first established in the 10th century, and had ceased to be of any practical importance by 1888.
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I
Term	Meaning
Imprest	1. Enforced service in the army or navy. 2. An advance or loan of money.
Incumbency	Office held by the incumbent - resident minister of the parish
Incumbent	A rector, parson, vicar or minister of a parish
Indemnity	Protection against loss or damage; legal exemption from penalties.
Indenture	A document written in duplicate on the same parchment or paper, and divided into two by cutting a wavy line
Inspeximus	Latin for "we have inspected" in the context of inspection of charters
Instrument	A document used to carry out an action
Interdiction	The placing or issuing of a prohibition.
Item	This is the actual document that we hold and that would be issued in the searchroom. It might be a single sheet of paper, a bundle of papers, a volume or an original bundle of deeds.
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L
Term	Meaning
Lammas	Enclosed land (formerly open) used as common grazing after harvest; Lammas day was in early August.
Leasow	A pasture.
Leet	The district covered by the Court Leet or the designated persons eligible to serve on the jury.
Level	Unlike library books, which tend to be catalogued one by one as separate items, archives are catalogued in groups. The archivist will look at all archives which belong together as part of a "collection", as identifying the links between the various documents is a significant part of the cataloguing process. To help users and other staff understand the context of a particular item, the archivist will create a catalogue which moves through different levels of description. You normally start with the collection as a whole - a brief description of the group of records, and end up with descriptions of individual items.
Levy	An assessment, duty or tax, or the act of collecting the same (in local records usually referring to parish rates).
Ley	Grassland, or a field of grass.
Ling	A kind of heather.
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M
Term	Meaning
Manor	A manor is a territorial unit that was held by a landlord who held land directly of the Crown. In the Middle Ages the manor was an economic unit, which included the demesne which the lord farmed himself, and the rest of the land, which was farmed by tenants or used as common pasture and waste. It is distinct from an estate because it also held a Court.
Manorial	Of or pertaining to a manor.
Manuscript/MS	A handwritten document.
Mark (money)	A sum of money used for account, after the Conquest the value was fixed at 160 pence or 13s 4d or two thirds of the pound sterling
Marriage Settlement	Financial and other arrangements made before or after a marriage, and the document recording these arrangements.
Math	(i) A mowing. (ii) Meadowland used for hay.
Meadow	Land used for growing grass, often low-lying by a river.
Meer	A small lake.
Meese	Another word for sparrows or tom tits
Messuage	A house and the ground around it.
Militia	Local force of volunteer soldiers (as opposed to professional soldiers).
Mill Holme/Mill Ham	A small meadow by a mill.
Modus	A money payment in lieu of tithes.
Moiety	A half
Murage	A toll or tax levied for the building or repairing of the walls of a town. This also means the right of levying such a toll.
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N
Term	Meaning
Nonconformist	Refusal to conform to the doctrine, discipline or polity of an established Church. Today, this terms is often used to describe Christian denominations other than the Church of England, e.g. Baptists, Methodists.
Nook	A corner or triangular area usually a small piece of land or corner in a building.
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O
Term	Meaning
Ordinary	Someone possessing ecclesiastical jurisdiction such as a Bishop or a Judge with authority to take cases in his own right.
Overseers of the Poor	A parish officer appointed to deal with the administration of the poor law as set down in the 1601 Poor Law Act. This Act continued until its reform in 1834. Later Overseers of the Poor became merely rate assessors and collectors. The office was abolished in 1925.
Overview/Hitlist	Hitlist is the name given to a list of all of the items that have been found containing the required search term. The level, title, docrefno and date are given in a list providing an overview of the items that have been found.
Owing Suit	The obligation to attend a particular court.
Ozier	Willow used for hurdles, etc.
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P
Term	Meaning
Pains	Term used in manorial courts meaning a penalty or punishment, often a threat for not fulfilling an order or condition of the court.
Panage/Pannage	The right of tenants to feed swine in common woodland
Parchment	The treated skin of sheep or goats used as a writing material.
Parish, civil	These often covered the same area as the ecclesiastical parish but had responsibilities for the poor, the highways and for petty law and order. The system was overseen by the Justices of the Peace, meeting at Quarter Sessions. This function continues today with elected Parish Councils.
Parish, ecclesiastical	A unit of pastoral care that was also expected to provide the resources to maintain its church and support its priest. A parish could be formed from more than one manor.
Parochial Church Council	A parochial governing body in the Church of England, consisting of the incumbent, the churchwardens and elected parishioners.
Pasture	Uncultivated land, used for grazing.
Pauper	A poor person destitute of property and without employment usually reliant on a charity or poor relief from their parish of residence.
PCC (Prerogative Court of Canterbury)	The Prerogative Court of Canterbury was the probate Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which proved wills of persons who left goods of considerable value, usually in more than one diocese or deanery. Wills from this court are held at The National Archives.
Peculiar	An ecclesiastical district (usually a parish) outside the jurisdiction of the archbishop, bishop or archdeacon. Peculiars were entitled to hold their own courts, hence, before 1858 they proved wills of people who owned property in their respective districts.
Penny Land	A portion of land valued at a penny a year
Pent house	A shed attached to the side of a house, used at a smithy for horses to be shod.
Perch	A unit of measurement of land: 1 perch = 1/40 rood, or 1/160 acre or about 30 square yards.
Petty Sessions	The meetings of local Justices of the Peace dealing with minor offences and the issuing of licences.
Photocolour	This field is only seen on descriptions of photographs and is used to record whether the image is in Black & White, Colour or if it is Toned.
Phototype	This field is only seen on descriptions of photographs and is used to record the type of photograph e.g. Ambrotype; Lantern; Slide; Glass Plate Negative; Print, Colour; Postcard.
Piece	A field or close of ground, often arable.
Pightle	An alternative name for a close or enclosed piece of land, usually though not always small in scale.
Pike	A butt [see entry for butt, above] of land running to a point (often because it lies at an angle to other strips).
Pinfold	A small enclosure for keeping stray animals in.
Pingle	A small piece of land, most commonly referred to in the Midlands.
Pipe Roll	The annual accounts of Crown revenues, which were sent by sheriffs to the Exchequer, where they were rolled around rods, or 'pipes', for storage. They are now housed in the National Archives under E372.
Pit	A term often used to denote a pond.
Pleck	A plot of enclosed ground or meadow.
Pole	A unit of measurement of land, either (1) square, equalling a perch, or (2) linear, equalling 5 1/2 yards.
Poll Tax	A 'head' tax. The first poll tax was levied in 1377, then again in 1381. All persons over a certain age (depending on when the tax was instigated) were required to pay the tax. The 'poll tax returns' are the records created from these levies, naming each taxpayer. Copies can be found at local record offices, but the originals are held at the National Archives.
Polygamy	Marriage with several spouses at one time
Poor Law	Refers to the Acts: 43 Elizabeth chapter 2, 1601 and 4/5 William IV chapter 76, 1834, both pieces of legislation created in order to deal with the poor.
Pound (animals)	An enclosure for stray animals that could be reclaimed on the payment of a fine.
Praecipe	A legal term for a writ commanding a defendant to do something or to appear and show why it should not be done or an order to the clerk of the court requesting that a writ be issued and specifying its contents.
Prebendary	The holder of a prebend, usually the canon of a cathedral or collegiate church.
Prebend	The right to a cathedral or collegiate church benefice.
Precentor	An official in a Cathedral either a member ranking next to the dean in the Old Foundation or a minor canon or chaplain in the New Foundation. It is also one who sings and plays without accompaniment in a church.
Preceptory	An estate or manor house supporting a subordinate community of the Knights Templars.
Presentments	A formal statement of something to be dealt with legally. A statement made on oath by a jury, magistrate or J.P or a report made by a churchwarden to a bishop during a visitation.
Priest in Charge	An incumbent of a parish who does not have permanent title, unlike a vicar and a rector.
Probate	A certificate showing that someone's will has been proved and registered.
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Q
Term	Meaning
Quarter Sessions	A system of quarterly meetings of the Justices of the Peace for each county and county borough which began in 1361. Records of Warwickshire Quarter Sessions do not survive before the seventeenth century. The Quarter Sessions court had both a judicial and administrative function so the surviving records include court minutes, calendars of prisoners along with licenses for ale houses, deposited plans for proposed public undertakings, including the construction of roads, railways and canals.
Quartern	A quarter part of anything.
Querent	A complainant or plaintiff
Quietus (roll)	Final settlement or discharge of a payment
Quitclaim	The act of renouncing a title or right or claim to another person.
Quitclaim	The act of transferring a title or right or claim to another
Quittance	Discharging a debt
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R
Term	Meaning
Rate Book	Books recording payment of the poor rate.
Recto	The right hand page of an open book, the opposite of verso.
Rector	A parson or incumbent of a parish whose tithes were not appropriated to a monastery or college in the past.
Recusancy	A person who refused to conform to the rites of the Established Anglican Church.
Removal Order	This was a warrant granted by the Justice of the Peace to forcibly transfer a pauper (or potential pauper) to his/her place of legal settlement.
Requisition	To require, demand or call upon something for military purposes
Rood	A unit of measurement of land: 1 rood = 1/4 acre or 1210 square yards.
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S
Term	Meaning
Sanitary Authority	Nineteenth century administrative body responsible for local sanitation and hygiene matters.
Search Term	Significant words that might be used in the description of the type of record you are looking for
Section	This is a level of description which describes an administrative grouping, e.g. Parochial Church Council, Personnel.
Seizin/Seisin	Possession of property, as opposed to ownership
Selion/s	Irregularly sized strips of arable land in open fields.
Sequestration	The process of appropriating the income and property of a benefice by the bishop.
Series	This is a level of description which describes a group of similar records, e.g. parish registers.
Settlement (right to reside)	Settlement was a system whereby the poor or potentially poor had to prove they had a right to settle in a parish. It was a way of ensuring the parish supported only those that had a legal right to live within that boundary. If a pauper could not prove settlement, he/she would be removed to the parish deemed legal place of settlement. What constituted settlement altered from time to time but could depend upon apprenticeship, place of birth, marriage (in the case of women), and/or father or mother's place of settlement.
Settlement Certificate	A settlement certificate was the written admission by a parish required by the poor, or potentially poor, which entitled them to legally settle in that parish.
Sheriff	The county representative of the Crown responsible for keeping prisoners, summoning jurors, executing writs and attending judges at the Assizes etc.
Shrievalty	The office or jurisdiction of a sheriff. Sheriffs were deputies of the Crown, and the main agent of the courts until the 14thcentury, and therefore of enormous executive influence in each county.
Slade	A valley or side of a hill.
Slang	A narrow strip of land between fields
Statute Merchant	Shorthand way of referring to the Statute of Merchants, 1285, which entitles someone owed a debt to seize the land of the person owing the money if he does not pay up by the appointed time
Suit	A tenant's obligation to attend the lord of the manor's court.
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T
Term	Meaning
Tenement	A house OR any holding of land, rent or property.
Terrier	A document summarising land holdings, particularly of a church
Testament	A formal declaration, usually in writing, of a person's wishes as to the disposal of his property after his death. See also Will.
Tithe/Tythe	A tenth of all produce given to the rector of a parish, who in return was supposed to maintain the chancel of the church and provide for church worship. Tithes were categorised as 'great', being corn and hay, and 'small', being livestock, wool and non-cereal crops. Where the rector of a church was an organisation, such as a college, or a layperson, the small tithe was paid to the vicar who served in the rector's place.
Title	A right to property
Toft	A plot of land to the rear of a building, often bounded at the rear by a back lane.
Transcript	An exact copy of the wording of a document.
Turnpike	A toll road (or the barrier at which tolls were collected on such a road) in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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V
Term	Meaning
Verso	The left hand page of an open book, the opposite of recto.
Vestry	The governing body of a parish. Generally appointment was based upon a property qualification, and often those qualifying held a position only after having first been invited to serve.
Vicar	Originally, the minister who was appointed by an absentee rector. The vicar received the small tithes, whereas a resident rector received all the tithe. Parishes which today are served by a vicar must have paid tithes to a religion institution such as a monastery in the Middle Ages.
Vill	A township, parish or manor.
Virgate	The Latin form of yardland.
Vouchee	In law this means the person vouched or summoned into court to give warranty of title. It can also mean a person cited or appealed to as an authority for some fact or statement, or in evidence of some assertion.
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W
Term	Meaning
Will	A person's formal declaration, usually in writing, of his intention as to the disposal of his property or other matters to be performed after his death. See also Testament.
Window Tax	This was introduced in 1697 after the abolition of the hearth tax. Residents paid a tax based on how many windows their place of abode had, though only where 10 or more windows existed. After 1825 occupiers with less than 8 windows were exempt. This tax was abolished in 1851.
Woodward	A forest keeper.
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Y
Term	Meaning
Yardland	One quarter of a hide. A hide is a variable measurement of land, but originally meant the amount of land that could be ploughed in a year using one plough with an 8-ox team. In the Midlands the average size of a yardland is generally accepted to be around 30 acres.
Ye	"The". The sound of the "th" at the beginning of the word "the" used to be represented by a single letter (called a thorn) which resembles a modern letter "y".
Yeoman	This term has changed its meaning over time but in the 13th-15th centuries it mainly referred to a knight's servants or retainers. In Tudor times the term was gradually widened to include prosperous working farmers below the rank of gentry. These yeomen worked their own land, did not necessarily have to be freeholders, and were considered to be more prosperous than the average husbandman.
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