Manuscripts and Special Collections
Pa D 29: Extract from a deed by Joanna, daughter of Nicholas de Rudyngton and widow of Stephen de Boneye (29 July 1380, Latin)
Transcript
fernedel de semine lini de terra ipsius Johanis et etiam annuatim sustentacionem unius vacce cum vaccis suis properis et vnam cameram in mesuagio ipsius Johanis subter ignem etetiam
vnum clauem ad hostium celaui ipsius Johanis cum libere introitu et egressu pro victualibus sibi necessariis in absentia vxoris dicti Johanis capiende
Translation
[John] is to give the said Joanna a competent living for herself from the next Feast of St Michael into the future for the whole of her life, and sufficient land for annual sowing of one ‘fernedel’1 of flax seed from John’s own lands, and also annually the sustenance for one cow with her own calf, and one room in John’s own house below the fire, and also [she may] take one key to the ‘hostium celavi’2 of the said John, with liberty to enter and exit for her victuals or necessities in the absence of the wife of the said John.
1. Probably a variant of ‘fardel’, ‘ferling’ or ‘farthingdeal’, all words for a fourth-part of a measure of land, often a quarter of an acre or a quarter of a yard-land.
2. ‘Celavi’ means ‘hidden’, or ‘concealed’. ‘Hostium’ is possibly an error for ‘Hospitium’, meaning ‘the household’, so the phrase probably means something like a locked pantry.
