manbote
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Learned borrowing from Old English manbōt (“fine paid to the lord of a slain man or vassal”). More at man, bote.
Noun[edit]
manbote (plural manbotes or manboten)
- (law, historical, Anglo-Saxon) A sum paid to a lord as a pecuniary compensation for killing his vassal, servant, or tenant.
- 1628–1644, Edw[ard] Coke, (please specify |part=1 to 4), London:
- Manbote of freedom
- 1688, John Lingard, A History of England:
- Three weeks later an equal sum, under the name of manbote, was paid to the lord, as a compensation for the loss of his vassal.
- 1962, H.R. Loyns, quoted in NYT, Daily Lexeme: Maegbot, 2011
- If a man was slain a special manbot, or compensation for the loss of a man, had to be paid to the lord side by side with the mægbot to the kin.
References[edit]
- “manbote”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.