Below you will find a myriad of medieval terminology listed alphabeticaly, followed by a brief summary on words commonly used when adressing other people. The items listed below are by no means the only dialect you will find used in the York game, due to the mutli-national origins of the Player Characters, and are listed as merely a suggestion for those wishing to use language of the older Hisotrical era. We are by no means determined to make you all speak and/or type in medieval English.

• Ad Censum: Status of villeins who pay a cash rent in lieu of labor services.
• Ad Opus: Status of villeins owing labor services.
• Alderman: Member of a council.
• Amercement: A fine.
• Anon: Presently or very soon.
• Aquamanile: A bowl used for washing hands.
• Assart: Tract of wasteland cleared or drained to be added to a village arable.
• Assize of Bread and Ale: Royal law fixing prices and standards.

• Bailiff: A lord's chief official who manages the maintenance of a manor or donjon.
• Bailey: A castle courtyard.
• Balk: Turf left unplowed to provide separation between strips.
• Banneret: Knights who bore heraldic standards on the battelfield.
• Beadle: A manorial official, usually an assitant to the reeve.
• Benedictines: An order of monks who believed in the poverty of the Church.
• Bezant: A gold coin from Byzantium.
• Bondman: Serf, villein.
• Boon-Work: Obligation of tenants for special work services, notably the lord's harvest.
• Buisine: A horn with a raised bell.
• Bylaws: Rules made by open-field villagers governing cultivation and grazing.

• Cellarer: Official of a monastery responsible for food supplies.
• Censuarius: Tenant ad censum.
• Chamberlain: A valet who maintains his or her private chambers.
• Chambermaid: A lady who serves a noblewoman in her bedchamber.
• Charter: Official document, usually deed or grant of privilege.
• Chevage: Payment, typically in kind, owed annually by villeins living outside of the manor.
• Chevauchee: Service owed to a noble to serve as an attendant.
• Cor: A hunting horn.
• Cornettes: A two-pointed headdress. (see the illustration on the page 111 of Vampire: The Dark Ages)
• Corrody: Old age pension, usually purchasable from a monastery, consisting of lodging, food, and incidentals.
• Cotter: Tenant of a cottage, usually holding little or no land.
• Coz: Short for cousin, slang for a friend.
• Curia: Courtyard.
• Curia Regis: The court of justice in a city.
• Craft: A proficiency at a particular type of labor.
• Customal: Document listing obligations and rights rights of tennants.

• Demense: Another term for land owned by a lord, commonly part of the manor cultivated directly by the lord.
• Distraint: Summons or arrest.
• Donjon: Medieval term for a keep.
• Drum Tower: A tower, normally round, that is constructed into the wall.

• Essoin: Excuse for non-attendance in court, or delay permitted a defendant.
• Extent: Document enumerating lands, services, and rents of a manor.
• Eyre: Royal circuit court ("justices in eyre").

• Farm: Lease.
• Fee, Fief: Land granted by a lord in return for services.
• Feudalism: Medieval social and political system by which the lord-vassal relationship was defined.
• Fortnight: A period of two weeks.
• Frankpledge: An oath taken by a city's citizens to be responsible for each other's sins. A policing system by which every member of a tithing was responsible for the conduct of every other member.
• Furlong: Plot of arable land, subdivision of a field.

• Gallery: A balcony that overlooks the great hall in a castle.
• Gersum: Entry fee for taking possession of a tenancy.
• Gill: A liquid measurement denoting one-fourth of a pint. Also called a noggin.
• Glebe: Land assigned to support the parish of a church.
• Gore: Wedge of arable land created by irregularity of terrain and plowing in strips.

• Hallmote: A palatial, manorial, court.
• Hamsoken: Assault in the victim's own house.
• Hayward or Messor: Lesser manorial official; assitant to the reeve.
• Headland: Segment of land left at end plow strips for turning the plow around.
• Heriot: 1) A tax paid by a murderer to the family of the deceased. 2) Death duty, usually "best beast" or other chattel, paid to a lord.
• Hueshire: House rent.
• Hide: Tax assement unit of land area, varying in size, theoretically 120 acres.
• Hue-and-Cry: Criminal apprehension system by which all within earshot were required to give chase to the malefactor.
• Hundred: Adminstrative division of an English shire (county).

• Infangenethef: The right to prosecute thieves caught in the act within a territory and to confiscate their goods.

• Jester: A comedian or a prankster of a court. Some magnates allowed the jester to assume her title on April Fool's Day.

• Kirtle: A woman's dress.
• Knave: A decietful person. Used as an insult.

• Leirwite: A fine levied against as unmarried woman for sexual misconduct.
• Love-Day (Dies Amoris): An opportunity given to litigents to reconcile differences.
• Lute: A medieval guitar.

• Manor: An estate consisting the lord's demense and tenant's holdings.
• Merchet: A fee paid by a villein for a daughter's mariage.
• Messuage: House and yard.
• Mortuary: Death duty paid by villein to parish church, usually second-best beast or chattel.
• Multure: A portion of meal or flour kept by the miller in payment for his services.

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• Oubilette: A cramped dungeon with a trap door in the ceiling as its only opening.
• Outremer Alternate term used to describe the Holy Land.

• Pannage: A fee to allow pigs to feed on forest mast.
• Pinfold or Punfold: The lord's pound for stray animals.
• Pledging: Legal institution by which one villager served as guaranty for another's court appearence, veracity, good conduct, payment of a debt, etc.

• Quarter: Unit of voulme, eight bushels.

• Reeve: Principal manorial official under the bailiff, always a villein.
• Ring: A unit of voulme, four bushels.
• Rummer: A large drinking container.

• Seisin: Legal possession of a property.
• Selion: Plow strip.
• Sennight: A period of one weeks.
• Serf: Peasant burdened with week-work, merchet, tallage and other obligations; bondman, villein.
• Steward or Seneschal: Chief official of an estate, supervisor of the lord's manors.
• Solar: The private rooms of a castle.
• Stew: A house of ill repute.
• Suit: Attendance.

• Tallage: Annual tax levied by lord on villeins.
• Tallow: A candle.
• Tally, Tally-Stick: A reeve's method of accounting for a manor's production, deliveries, reciepts, and expenditures; kept on a notched stick.
• Tithe: Payment to the church consisting of a tenth of produce.
• Tithing: Unit of ten or twelve village men mutually responsible for each other's conduct.
• Toft: Yard of a village house.

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