This glossary explains some of the terms used in Forman’s and Napier’s casebooks.
The majority of Forman’s and Napier’s records are written in English. Spelling, punctuation, and grammar have all changed considerably since their day (Napier, for instance, frequently omits the final ‘e’ from words ending in ‘ence’), but this should not normally present insuperable problems to modern English-speaking readers. This page provides a list of archaic and technical terms, or highly variant spellings, that may be confusing to non-specialists.
The astrologers and their associates also sometimes used Latin, especially for certain stock phrases or for entries of a personal or sensitive nature. This glossary explains the Latin words and phrases that recur most frequently in the casebooks.
| English terms | |
|---|---|
| abort, abortion | miscarry, miscarriage. The term could be used in the modern sense but very rarely was |
| bag, bagger | Napier’s habitual spellings of ‘beg’ and ‘beggar’ |
| band | bond, in the sense of security or bail |
| beworded | bewitched |
| biles | boils |
| boy | may mean son or male child, but more often means young male servant or apprentice |
| brought abed of/with | delivered of (a child) |
| burdeus, burdeux | Bordeaux |
| bwy | Forman’s habitual spelling of ‘buy’ |
| cast up | vomit |
| chile | child |
| clumpers | clots |
| cods | testicles |
| cossen, cozen | cheat, swindle (as a verb) |
| cours, course | menstrual period |
| cousin | any relation by blood or marriage beyond the immediate nuclear family |
| diz | short for ‘disease’, i.e. any medical condition (or anything construed by the practitioner as a medical condition) |
| docters, the | the London College of Physicians, qualified medical practitioners with authority to grant licences to other physicians, and who repeatedly attempted to ban the unlicensed Forman from practising |
| evil tongue(s) | enchantment, witchcraft |
| fairy-pinched | having unexplained superficial injuries imputed to the action of malign spirits. Normally but not exclusively used with reference to small children. |
| fit | may mean attack or seizure, but ‘by fits’ means ‘intermittently’ |
| flowers | menstrual period(s) |
| forspoken | bewitched |
| frantic, frantick | frenzied, delirious |
| frends, friends, frinds | may mean ‘friends’ in the modern sense, but more often means ‘family’. Occurs mainly in judgment sections. |
| geale | Napier’s habitual spelling of ‘gaol’ |
| gossip to | be godparent to |
| go(e) | walk |
| go(e) to ground | defecate |
| Goodwife, Goody | a term of address for a married woman of middling social status (generally speaking, below ‘Mistress’ but above someone referred to with no honorific at all, though there is some overlap at both ends of the spectrum) |
| green sickness | a wasting disease typically affecting relatively young women of post-puberal age, sometimes retrospectively diagnosed as chlorosis |
| grief, greefe, grife | May mean either ‘grief’ in the modern sense, i.e. sorrow or emotional distress, or simply physical pain or discomfort, as in ‘Elisab. Smith for a greefe in her armes’ (CASE11696) |
| halek, halk | Forman’s private code-word for ‘had/have/is having/has had/will have sex with’ or ‘the sex act’ |
| hickets, hickocks, hitchcocks | hiccups |
| holland | a type of coarse linen fabric |
| holpen | helped |
| Indians, the | either the East Indies, i.e. the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia, or the West Indies, i.e. the Americas. It is clear from the context that Forman uses this term to refer to the geographical areas, not their inhabitants. |
| kinsman, kinswoman | basically the same as ‘cousin’ above, but gender-specific |
| leeke | Napier’s habitual spelling of ‘like’ |
| lying in | The ‘lying-in period’ was the ritual period during which an expectant or recent mother was confined to bed. This lasted from shortly before the birth to approximately a month after it. |
| maid, maiden (usually spelled ‘mead’ or ‘meaden’ by Napier) | may mean female servant, virgin and/or unmarried woman |
| make water | urinate |
| man | either ‘man’ in the modern sense or ‘male servant’ |
| matrix | womb |
| megrim(e), megrym(e) | migraine |
| mistress | most commonly used as a prefix to the name of a female of relatively high social status (above ‘Goodwife’ but below ‘Lady’). As such, it is normally abbreviated as ‘Mrs’ or ‘Mres’ and given in the normalised view of Casebooks transcriptions as ‘Mrs’, but note that it is not an indicator of marital status and is quite often applied to children of below marriageable age. The term may also mean ‘female employer’ or (much less often) ‘female lover’. |
| morphew, morpheus | skin eruption |
| on | Napier’s habitual spelling of ‘one’ |
| onc | Napier’s habitual spelling of ‘once’ |
| pocks, pox | any ailment characterised by pock-marks, often retrospectively diagnosed as either smallpox or venereal disease |
| poultfooted | club-footed |
| questo | question (or, in Latin, quaestio) |
| quick | a term used by Napier (among others) to describe a pregnant woman who can feel her unborn child moving. Some writers use it simply to mean ‘pregnant’, but Napier explicitly distinguishes between the two (e.g. MS Ashmole 239, f. 92v: ‘20 weekes since with child quick a fortnight’). |
| reins | kidneys |
| running of the reins | as used by Forman and Napier, male or female genital discharge; gonorrhoea. Later practitioners applied the term to genital or urinary problems more generally. |
| seck | sack (fortified white wine) |
| sennet | sevennight, i.e. week |
| share | groin |
| sicknes(s), womans sicknes(s) | menstrual period(s) |
| skrike, skriking | (esp. of young children) scream, screaming |
| spice | species, type |
| sprite | spirit, in the sense of supernatural agency |
| suet | suit, in any of the senses of lawsuit, marriage suit, or petition for favour or preferment from an authority figure |
| teeming | pregnant |
| toyed headed | mentally disturbed |
| walles, walls | Wales |
| wench, wentch | young woman or female child of relatively low social status |
| wher | sometimes means ‘where’, but in Forman’s notes normally means ‘whether’ |
| whites, the | bloodless vaginal discharge, often retrospectively diagnosed as leucorrhoea |
| wickes | Forman’s habitual spelling of ‘weeks’ |
| with child | pregnant |
| wordl, wordle | Forman’s habitual spellings of ‘world’ |
| yard | penis, or groin more generally |
| yerland | Ireland |
| Latin terms | |
|---|---|
| abscondita, absconditus | (having) run away or disappeared |
| ad hoc tempus | at this time |
| amissa, amissus | lost, missing |
| amo | to love |
| circiter | approximately |
| cond[uco] | to marry |
| consilium | advice |
| curabilis | curable |
| Deus | God |
| domina | mistress, in the sense of female employer (but especially if spelled with a capital D may also be a prefix to the name of a female of relatively high social status) |
| dominus | master (but especially if spelled with a capital D may also mean ‘Mr’ or ‘God’) |
| ego, ego ipse | I, I myself |
| eodem tempore | at the same time |
| filia, filius | daughter, son |
| frater | brother |
| furata, furatus | stolen |
| gravida | pregnant |
| hora (often abbreviated to ‘h.’ or ‘hor’) | literally ‘at the hour of’, or in modern English simply ‘at’ |
| lues venerea | venereal disease |
| maritus | husband |
| mater | mother |
| mi., min. | abbreviation for medieval Latin ‘minuta’ (minutes) |
| mine sang[uinem] | let blood |
| morbus | disease, illness |
| morbus Gallicus | lit. ‘the French disease’, i.e. syphilis, or venereal disease more generally. (In French, the same condition was often referred to as ‘la maladie anglaise’, i.e. ‘the English disease’.) |
| nata, natus | born |
| necne, nec non | or not |
| obeo | to die |
| pater | father |
| pecunia | money |
| prius | first |
| pro | for, about (in the sense of who or what a question is about) |
| profluvium renum | ‘running of the reins‘ (q.v.) |
| profluvium seminis | lit. ‘overflow of seed’, i.e. male or female genital discharge |
| pro rebus amissis/furatis | for things lost/stolen |
| quid inde | literally, ‘then what?’. A formula used by Forman to mean ‘what will the outcome/consequence be?’, sometimes expanded as ‘quid inde accidet’, ‘quid inde evenit’, ‘quid inde sequitur’, meaning ‘what will happen next?’ or ‘what will follow?’. |
| sectum | suit, in any of the senses of lawsuit, marriage suit, or petition for favour or preferment from an authority figure |
| serva, servus | servant (female and male respectively) |
| soror | sister |
| thezaurus | treasure |
| turba | impending trouble of a non-medical nature |
| ubi | where |
| utrum | whether |
| utrum sit gravida | whether she is pregnant |
| uxor | wife |
| veneficata, veneficatus | bewitched |
| veneficium | witchcraft |
| vidua, viduus | widow, widower |
| viva aut mortua, vivus aut mortuus | alive or dead |
| vivit aut moritur | will live or die |
| vulnerata, vulneratus | wounded, injured |
