accubitum

English

Noun

accubitum (plural accubita)

1. A bench or sofa for reclining at a table.
   • 1967, Georges Pillement, Unknown Portugal:

     This may have been an accubitum with magical qualities of procreation for sterile husbands who slept on this stone.

   • 1974, Chrēstos G. Patrinelēs, Agapē Karakatsanē, Maria Theocharē, Stavronikita Monastery: History, Icons, Embroideries, page 197:

     Seated on the accubitum used at the Last Supper, the disciples are undoing their sandals in preparation for the Washing of the Feet.

   • 2011, Paul J. Griffiths, Song of Songs, →ISBN, page 48:

     For the Song, all these are also places for sexual love: the beloved has recalled her embraces of the "king" on the "couch", and elsewhere in scripture the same word is used for something on which lovemaking may occur (most dramatically, it is on an accubitum that Haman plans to rape Esther in Esth. 7:8); and "Solomon's bed" is mentioned in the context of preparations for his marriage.

   • 2016, Gaetano Curzi, “The Two Triclinia of Pope Leo III as “Icons of Power””, in IKON, volume 9:

     In early medieval Rome the Liber pontificalis designates in different ways the place where banquets were held, such as the Basilica Vigilii, where the Emperor Constans II (641-668), when visiting the Lateran, could wash and eat, while accubita (dining sofas) were placed by Leo III into an elegant domus near the Basilica of San Pietro.

2. A round dining table.
   • 1988, Athanasios D. Kominēs, Patmos: Treasures of the Monastery, page 197:

     The circular attic is roofed with a dome, and inside it the oval table - the accubitum - is set, and the disciples around it are untying their shoes.

   • 2011, Margaret Dunlop Gibson, The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv, Bishop of Hadatha, →ISBN:

     This is the interpretation of He is in the bosom of His Father ; for the order led to this ; for they were reclining round an accubitum, that is to say, a circular table ; and the first at the table was our Lord ; but after Him and on His right Simeon; and [it was] of necessity in a round form like a circle.

3. A dining hall or refectory.
   • 1949, Princeton University Studies in Papyrology - Volume 6, page 200:

     Half share of dining room on second story, fourth of open air apartment above the accubitum with half of porch, pylon, terrace, passage way and bake shop.

   • 1991, Paul Arthur, “Naples: a case of urban survival in the early Middle Ages?”, in Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Moyen-Age, volume 103, number 2:

     The data seems to be consistent with other sources. Around the mid fifth century, for example, we may read of the construction of baths by Bishop Nostrianus and that of a refectory (accubitum), at the episcopal palace, by Bishop Vincent.

   • 2000, Maureen Catherine Miller, The Bishop's Palace: Architecture and Authority in Medieval Italy, →ISBN:

     The Gesta episcoporum neapolitanorum tells us that Bishop Vincentius of Naples (554-578) "built the baptistery of the minor font within the episcopium and the accubitum next to it decorated with great care." Remains of this "accubitum" or dining hall were discovered during nineteenth-century excavations in the sacristy of the Neapolitan cathedral.

Latin

Noun

accubitum m

1. accusative singular of accubitus

References

• “accubitum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• accubitum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “accubitum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “accubitum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin