|
The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett
As promised, here's my unfamiliar words from The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. Doubt you'll be using any of these words in everyday conversations.
- undercroft: a subterranean room, especially a vaulted chamber under a church.
"Then in spring, they would vault the undercroft, floor the hall above it, and put on the roof."
- verderer: an English judicial officer having charge of the king's forest.
But toward the end of the afternoon, Tom saw smoke rising above the trees, and found the home of a solitary verderer, one of the king's forest police.
- transept: the transversal part of a cruciform church that crosses at right angles to the greatest length between the nave and the apse.
The crosspiece consisted of two transepts which stuck out to the north and south either side of the altar.
- obedientiary: one of the minor officials in a medieval monastery appointed by the abbot.
He was one of the obedientiaries, the senior officers of the monastery.
- quire: the part of a church appropriated to the singers.
Nearest the crossing was the quire, with wooden stalls where the monks sat and stood during the services.
- almoner: a onetime official of a monastery charged with distributing alms.
... there were three more officials who were nominally under his control but had a degree of independence, the guest-master, the infirmarer, who looked after old and sick monks in a separate building; and the almoner.
- merels: an ancient game for two in which each player has from 3 to 12 counters placed at the angles of a figure consisting of three concentric squares and tries to be first to secure a row of 3 on any line.
The game was obviously a variant of merels, or ninemen's morris, and probably a gift brought back from Normandy by Aliena's father.
- tetchily: irritably or peevishly sensitive.
"I know what battlements are for," the earl interrupted tetchily.
- jongleur: an itinerant medieval minstrel reciting and singing for hire.
"Yes, he was a jongleur. He told me all those poems, just the way I told them to you."
- voussoir: one of the tapering or wedge-shaped pieces forming an arch or vault.
The apprentices, among whom was Tom's stepson, Jack, built the arch up from either side, with the wedge-shaped stones called voussoirs.
- aspergillum: a short-handled brush used for sprinkling holy water.
Each bishop carried a small brush called an aspergillum and a vessel of holy water, and as they marched, singing, they dipped the brushes in the water and sprinkled the walls of the church.
- compline: the last liturgical prayer of the day said after nightfall or just before retiring.
Philip put down the template. "I must go in to compline." He turned away.
- barbican: an outer defensive work of a city or castle; especially, a tower at a gate or bridge.
It had a stout stone wall with a castellated parapet, and here, where previously the bridge had led straight into the main street, the way was barred by a stone-built barbican with enormously heavy iron-clad doors that now stood open but were undoubtedly shut tight at night.
- shriven: to have been freed from guilt, especially by confessing one's sins to a priest.
He had watched her weaken, he had seen her eyes close, he had heard her breathing stop, and he had let her die unshriven.
- justiciar: a high royal judicial officer in medieval England; especially a justice of one of the superior courts.
While the earls and bishops and abbots met in the keep, the lesser nobility gathered in the castle courtyard: the knights and sheriffs, minor barons, justiciars and castellans; people who could not stay away from the capital city while their future and the future of the kingdom were being decided.
- posset: a hot drink consisting essentially of sweetened and spiced milk curdled with ale or wine, and sometimes thickened with bread.
William, who normally ate and drank heartily, was nibbling bread, and sipping posset, a drink made with milk, beer, eggs and nutmeg, to calm his bilious stomach.
|
 |
Jeremy
13 years ago
|
|
| | |
