Charis in the World of Wonders

by Marly Youmans

  bossock—To toss and tumble clumsily. VEA.

  bottle-bird—“An apple rolled up and baked in a crust, so called from its fancied resemblance to birds nesting in those bottle-shaped receptacles, placed for that purpose under the eaves of some old buildings.” VEA.

  bruff—“Hearty, jolly, healthy, in good case.” VEA.

  bryony—White bryony is native to England and found in hedgerows. Gourd family: Cucurbitaceae. A powerful laxative. Also called English mandrake. The rootstock could be shaped to human form in a mold.

  buffle-headed—Stupid and confused. VEA.

  bumble-footed—Stepping awkwardly and clumsily. VEA.

  camlet—Of Asian origin and first made with camel or goat hair, the wool-and-silk camlet in England was one of the New Draperies, made of worsted-wool yarns, sometimes combined with silk. Norwich was the center for manufacturing the New Draperies.

  cart-racks—Ruts. VEA.

  Charis—Frequently used in the New Testament, the Greek word charis (Χάρις) suggests a complex mixture of qualities, particularly the bounty and beauty of grace. In the Iliad, Charis is married to the craftsman god, Hephaestus. In Greek mythology, a charis was one of the goddesses of beauty, nature, creativity, charm, and fertility. Roman mythology named them the Gratiae or Graces.

  chimbley—A once-common variation on chimney, along with chimbly, chimley, and others. The godly would have called what we call fireplaceby the word hearth.

  choleric—To be subject to choler (and so be quick, quick-tempered, and irritable) was to be subject to one of the four basic temperaments ruled by the humors.

  cobble-hearted—Hearts like cobblestones.

  commonplace book—A book composed of copied excerpts, usually by topic, to function as an aid to memory and a storage place. The name comes from loci communes, or common places.

  coppet—Saucy, sassy.

  craunch—Precursor to crunch.

  Crawly-mawly—“It seems to have been fabricated from the words crawl and mawl, and to mean sorely mauled, and scarcely able to crawl.” VEA.

  cricket—A small, low stool. Historian Alice Morse Earle describes small Puritan children sitting on crickets during meetinghouse sermons.

  cunning folk—Healers of the sick in body or mind, who might also tell fortunes, identify a thief, help with love problems, etc.

  Damaris—Name derived from Acts 17:34.

  De Boys—French, du bois, or wood. A sadd color. Alice Morse Earle also includes tawny, russet, ginger-lyne, and deer as Puritan brown colors.

  “desirable calamity”—A description of woman from the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), the famous treatise on witchcraft by Heinrich Kramer, 1487.

  diantre—Euphemistic for diable, or devil. Expressive of astonishment. French equivalent to the English expression the deuce or the dickens.

  dodman—Snail. “Hodmandod [for snail] is pretty general. We are content with a part of it.” VEA.

  down-lying—A lying-in; “a woman in travail.” VEA.

  drabble-tail—A slattern. VEA.

  duds—“This was an old English term of contempt for dress. A scarecrow, in his cast-off rags was sometimes called a ‘dudman.’ ” David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 146.

  elvish—Peevish, “wantonly mischievous.” VEA.

  faire la moue—An expression going back to the Middle Ages, meaning to make a grimace: to push the lips out slightly, to pout.

  fallals—Flaunting and flaring adornments. VEA.

  falling band—The falling band was a less showy form of collar than a standing band. Falling bands were made of cambric linen or silk. The collar fastened at the neck and hung down in front and in back.

  Falmouth—In 1690, Falmouth was a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and defended by Fort Loyall; today, it is Portland, Maine. The bluff was razed in the mid-nineteenth century.

  fardels—A bundle or burden.

  feuillemorte—Also phillymort, philly mort, filemot, phillemot, philomot, feulemort, fillamort. A Puritan sadd color. “So to make a countryman understand what FEUILLEMORTE colour signifies it may suffice to tell him, it is the color of withered leaves falling in Autumn.” John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Ch. XI.

  fimble—To touch lightly and frequently with fingertips. VEA.

  fingerhut—Thimble, finger protector. Another word for a thimble was hutkin.

  finis—The end. Introduced from Latin around the middle of the fifteenth century.

  firemark—A port-wine stain.

  flommery, flummery—From Sir Kenelm Digby, The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Knight Opened: “In the West-country, they make a kind of Flomery of wheat flower, which they judge to be more harty and pleasant than that of Oat-meal. Take half, or a quarter of a bushel of good Bran of the best wheat (which containeth the purest flower of it, though little, and is used to make starch,) and in a great woodden bowl or pail, let it soak with cold water upon it three or four days. Then strain out the milky water from it, and boil it up to a gelly or like starch. Which you may season with Sugar and Rose or Orange-flower-water, and let it stand till it be cold, and gellied. Then eat it with white or Rhenish-wine, or Cream, or Milk, or Ale.”

  florilegium—Literally, “a gathering of flowers.” A commonplace book in which a reader would inscribe excerpts from books, primarily on religious subjects.

  frampled—Cross and ill-humored. VEA.

  gadrooning—Use of convex and concave flutings to decorate metal.

  godly, the—English Christians who sought to reform and purify the Church of England from ritual and worship practices regarded overly Catholic were often called Puritans, Precisians, or Precisemen; they called themselves the godly. Those we now call Puritans were intent on creating and living in a godly culture. The Massachusetts Bay Company financed the establishment of a colony populated primarily by and led by the godly in 1628. (Separatists believed that neither the Church of England nor the Roman Catholic Church could be reformed; separatists under William Bradford had founded Plymouth Plantation in 1620 with funding from London merchant investors.)

  Goodman, Goodwife, Goody—Titles of respect, primarily for the yeoman class. Goodman and Goodwife (and the contracted form, Goody) came to colonial America from England in the early seventeenth century, a time when such titles were dying out in England. There, artisans and literate tradesmen were moving from Goodman to Master, and so Goodman began to be applied to illiterate, unskilled workers. In the colonies, “even as late as 1692, Goodman and Goodwife / Goody were applied to highly respectable and well-to-do members of the community.” Some disagreement appeared as to whether Goodman and Goodwife or Goody referred only to church members, and Governor Winthrop clarified that Goodman suggested merely a worthy citizen, capable of public service. Examination of Salem witchcraft trial records (1692) suggests that whether people were Goodman and Goodwife or Master / Mister and Mistress depended on the following: “(i) family background, (ii) holding an office of dignity and/or a higher military rank, (iii) employing labourers, and (iv) affluence, whereas (v) occupation and (vi) moral character do not seem to have exerted particular influence.” Only a decade later, the titles used tend to be simply Mister and Mistress. Adrian Pable, “Reconstructing the History of Two Colonial New England Terms of Address: Goodman and Goodwife,” in Marina Dossena and Roger Lass, eds., Studies in English and European Historical Dialectology (Berlin, New York, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 238, 243.

  gridolin—A Puritan dye-color name derived from the French gris de lin or flax blossom, cited in Alice Morse Earle’s Customs and Fashions in Old New England (1894), p. 319.

  hang-sleeve—“A dangler; an officious but unmeaning suitor.” VEA.

  harnsey-gutted—“Lank and lean, like a harnsey” or heron. VEA.

  Haverhill—Originally Pentucket, the town was founded in 1640 and named to honor first minister John Ward’s birthplace in England. Th
e Puritan exodus to colonial America (1629—1641) drew strongly on East Anglia, the region originally known as the Kingdom of the East Angles, organized in the 6th century. “We may take its geographic center to be the market town of Haverhill, very near the point where the three counties of Suffolk, Essex and Cambridge come together. A circle drawn around the town of Haverhill with a radius of sixty miles will circumscribe the area from which most New England families came.” David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 31.

  hippocras—Wine poured through the manicum hippocraticum or “sleeve of Hippocrates,” a jelly bag containing sugar and spices such as cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and grains of paradise (West African seeds in the ginger family, “hard, reddish brown, and have a biting aromatic taste, suggestive of a blend of ginger, eucalyptus and cayenne pepper”). Various other spices could be added. The wine was thought to be a stimulant and also to help with digestion. Also: ipocras, hipocras, ypocras.www.historicfood.com.

  hubble-bubble—Precursor to hubbub.

  I and J (Iothan and Jothan)—“In the Roman alphabet, i and j were two forms of the same letter, but in the 16th and 17th centuries, i was used instead of j, both initially and medially, either vowel or consonant. As a consonant, the letter was pronounced as we pronounce j, as in jury, but written iury.” Ronald A. Hill, “Interpreting the Symbols and Abbreviations in Seventeenth Century English and American Documents”, Genealogical Journal 21:1 (Salt Lake City: Utah Genealogical Association, 1993), p. 1.

  key-and-book—In this New England magical practice, “a key was placed inside a book, usually a Bible or psalter, which was then held loosely while the diviner asked a question; if the book turned or fell, the answer was positive.” Richard Godbeer, The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 37.

  King Philip’s War—Pokunoket chief Metacom, Metacomet, or “King Philip” led a rebellion that united Narragansett, Pokunoket, and Wampanoag nations against the English settlers of southern New England. The fourteen-month uprising (1675—1676) divided native peoples in the region and destroyed towns. After Metacom’s execution, some of his followers fled to Canada, and others were sold as slaves to the West Indies.

  King William’s War—New France allied with the Wabanaki Confederacy and New England allied with the Iroquois fought one another from 1688 to 1697. The destruction of Falmouth was a part of this long intercolonial struggle.

  kisk—A husk or dry stalk for kindling fires. VEA.

  knobble-tree—A head. Forby describes knobble-tree as an “unseemly” word that gives “no more dignity to the human head than to the axle-tree of a cart, or the puddle-tree of a plough.” VEA.

  lagarag—A lazy fellow. VEA.

  laldrum—“An egregious simpleton.” Forby reports the merry definition of “a fool and a half.” VEA.

  lammock—“To lounge with such an excess of laziness as if it were actual lameness.” VEA.

  lastmost—The very last.

  locus amoenus—In European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Ernst Robert Curtius defines the pleasance or locus amoenus as “a beautiful, shaded natural site. Its minimum ingredients comprise a tree (or several trees), a meadow, and a spring or brook. Birdsong and flowers may be added” (p. 195).

  lustring—A plain silk fabric with glossy (though not satiny) finish. Also: lutestring.

  maggot—A whimsy or monkey-trick. A freak or strange fancy. VEA.

  malshapen—Misshapen.

  marchpane—Marzipan. A confection of sugar or honey, mortared almonds, and rose water. According to the 1671 A QUEENS Delight; OR, The Art of Preserving, Conserving and Candying. As also A right Knowledge of making Perfumes, and Distilling the most Excellent Waters, the maker was to “Ice and Gild, and garnish it according to Art.” Marchpane could be formed into shapes to charm or surprise; for example, A QUEENS Delight includes a recipe to make marchpane “look like Collops of Bacon.”

  Massachusetts Bay Colony—An English settlement established around Massachusetts Bay in 1628, the strongly Puritan colony lasted until 1691, when Plymouth Plantation and other lands were added, and the whole was renamed as the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

  maugre—In spite of.

  Mehitabel—(muh-HET-uh-bell) From Mehetabel, often translated as “whom God makes happy” or “benefitted by God.” Genesis 36:39; 1 Chronicles 1:50.

  melancholic—One of the four temperaments determined by the four humors—black bile created melancholy. Each humor was connected to one of the four elements. Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), a dense work of scholarship narrated by the melancholic “Democritus Jr.,” was published when the theory of the humors was ebbing.

  Mi’kmaq—In the early seventeenth century, the Mi’kmaq became allied with the French and Catholicism. After King Philip’s War (Meta-comet’s War, 1675—1678), they joined the Wabanaki Confederacy with other Algonquian-speaking nations—Abenaki, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot.

  mort—A large quantity or number.

  mulpy—Sulky, related to mulp, to pout or sulk, and the mulps, a fit of sulkiness. VEA.

  Muscovy glass—Mica.

  nabbity—Said in description of a small but full-grown woman. VEA.

  nattle—“To be bustling and stirring about trifles; or very busy in doing nothing at all.” VEA.

  naughty-pack—A term of reproof suggesting folly and vice. VEA.

  nazzle—“A ludicrous dimin. of ass.” VEA.

  niffle-naffle—“To trifle; to play with one’s work.” VEA.

  nightwalking—Being abroad at night past curfew.

  nittle—Nittle combines little with ideas of neatness and prettiness. VEA.

  old-shocks—“Mischievous goblins” that may take the shape of dogs or calves and waylay foot traffic on paths and roads. They knock down wanderers and may bruise them or sprain or break an ankle. VEA.

  old-sows—Wood lice. VEA.

  Onesimus—The Epistle to Philemon was written by the apostle Paul from prison. Accused of a theft, the slave Onesimus ran away and sought Paul and was converted to Christianity. Paul urges Philemon to accept Onesimus as a beloved brother in Christ. Onesimus became a bishop and was later martyred.

  palsanguenne—Euphemistic swear word for par le sang de dieu, or by God’s blood. Comparable to the English swounds or zounds (euphemistic for God’s wounds).

  paragon—A type of double camlet, often printed or with a wavy or “watered” effect, used for both gowns and hangings.

  piss-bed—A dandelion. “So universally is its diuretic effect known, that it is said to have a name equivalent to this in every language in Europe.” VEA.

  pock-fretten—Skin marked by smallpox scars. VEA.

  pricklesome—Prickly.

  princox—Coxcomb.

  puissant thole—Mighty forbearance.

  push—A boil or pimple. According to Jack Fisiak and Peter Trudgill’s East Anglian English, the word was brought to Norwich and Colchester by sixteenth-century Dutch Protestant refugees fleeing Spanish persecution in the Low Countries.

  pyramidis cream—“Take a quart of water, and six ounces of harts horn, and put it into a Bottle with Gum-dragon, and Gum-arabick, of each as much as a small Nut, put all this into the Bottle, which must be so big as will hold a pint more; for if it be full it will break; stop it very Close with a Cork, and tye a Cloth about it, put the Bottle into a pot of beef when it is boyling, and let it boyle three hours, then take as much Cream as there is Jelly, and halfe a pound of Almonds well beaten with Rose-water, so that you cannot discern what they be, mingle the Cream and the Almonds together, then strain it, and do so two or three times to get all you can out of the Almonds, then put jelly when it is cold into a silver Bason, and the Cream to it; sweeten it as you like, put in two or three grains of Musk and Amber-greece, set it over the fire, stirring it continually and skimming it, till it be seething hot, but let
it not boyle, then put it into an old fashion drinking-Glasse, and let it stand till it is cold, and when you will use it, hold your Glass in a warm hand, and loosen it with a Knife, and whelm it into a Dish, and have in readinesse Pine Apple blown, and stick it all over, and serve it in with Cream or without as you please.” W. M., The Queen’s Closet Opened (London: 1655).

  quodiniack—A fruit paste. A Closet for Ladies and Gentlemen (1608) refers to quodiniacks of quinces, plums, and pippins.

  raveners—Those who raven—who seek prey, who devour ravenously.

  remarkables—Providential deliverances, ghosts, witches, miraculous happenings, mysterious phenomena, cloud visions, occult mysteries, transformations, and unaccountable events.

  rhenoister—A rhinoceros.

  rollipoke—Coarse hempen cloth, often used as a wrapper or bag “for rolls or bales of finer goods.” VEA.

  rommock—“To romp or gambol boisterously.” VEA.

  rumgumptious—“Sturdy in opinion, rough and surly in asserting it.” VEA.

  runted—Stunted, runty.

  ruttling—Making a harsh, rough sound in breathing. VEA.

  sack posset—The foam on top and the custard-like middle could be eaten with a spoon; the bottom alcoholic portion was a drink. My Lord of Carlisle’s Sack-Posset, from The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Knight Opened (1670): “Take a pottle of Cream, and boil in it a little whole Cinnamon, and three or four flakes of Mace. To this proportion of Cream put in eighteen yolks of eggs, and eight of the whites; a pint of Sack; beat your eggs very well, and then mingle them with your Sack. Put in three quarters of a pound of Sugar into the Wine and Eggs, with a Nutmeg grated, and a little beaten Cinnamon; set the Bason on the fire with the Wine and Eggs, and let it be hot. Then put in the Cream boiling from the fire, pour it on high, but stir it not; cover it with a dish, and when it is settled, strew on the top a little fine Sugar mingled with three grains of Amber-greece, and one grain of Musk, and serve it up.”