Clerics and the Selling of Wine

A clergyman.

"We therefore by this present statute have thought good to declare the following as customary and decent fashions of selling wine: to wit, that such sales should be conducted without vociferation or clamour of taverners and (so far as in the sellers lieth) without fraud; without tarrying or stay of men drinking such wines either within or at the door of the house, or within the privileged premises wherein such wines are sold; nor, when men would fain drink such wines, may any occasion be given of tarrying or staying at that same place, by the lending of cups or jugs, as is commonly done in taverns of laymen, nor may such be supplied in any way; and these manners aforesaid of selling wine are, in virtue of this present statute, to be used henceforth by clerics."

The Council of Cologne (1333).

Shipper

Someone who transports good by ship, often the owner of the ship.

“Governor Rolph died, and at the height of the primary campaign came the strike against the shipowners in San Francisco. The San Francisco police were not brutal enough, and the shipowners wanted Merriam to call out the militia to break the strike. Merriam at that time was carrying on his campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor, and the week before the militia was called out his headquarters was unable to meet its payroll. Immediately after the militia was called out, a campaign committee account was opened at the Crocker National Bank in San Francisco, the initial depost being $13,700. Raymond Haight charged over the radio that the shipowners paid to Merriam’s headquarters more than $30,000 on this deal.”

Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor and How I Got Licked (1934).

Zemindar

In pre-colonial India, the person who collected land taxes in the district.

"Memories of Indian destitutes mix with the hordes of New York street people, and they float free, like astronauts, inside my head. I've made it. I'm making something of my life. I've left home, my husband, to get a Ph.D. in special ed. I have a multiple-entry visa and a small scholarship for two years. After that, we'll see. My mother was beaten by her mother-in-law, my grandmother, when she'd registered for French lessons at the Alliance Francaise. My grandmother, the eldest daughter of a rich zamindar, was illiterate."

Bhurati Mukherjee, The Middleman and Other Stories (1988).

Wife

A woman engaged in some humble profession, such as a Fish-wife, Ale-wife, Apple-wife, Tripe-wife, Oyster-wife, etc.

"Then came I by a wife that did custards sell."

Jack Juggler (1563).

Pope

“Gerson set little store by visions and revelations which were recent and universally spoken of, including even those of Bridget of Sweden and Catherine of Siena. He had heard so many stories of this sort that he had lost all belief in them. Someone or other would always be asserting that it had been revealed to him that he would be pope. A certain man, in particular, believed himself predestined, first, to become pope, then to be the Antichrist, so that he had thought of killing himself in order to save Christendom from such an evil.”

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).

Custos Rotulorum

The keeper of the rolls. The principal justice of the peace in a county, the keeper of the rolls and records of the sessions of the peace.

"In my way Washington overtook me and told me upon my question whether he knew of any place now void that I might have, by power over friends, that this day Mr. G. Montagu was to be made Custos Rotulorum for Westminster, and that by friends I might get to be named by him Clerk of the Peace, with which I was, as I am at all new things, very much joyed."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (March 7, 1660).

Flaubert on Ebonists

A wood worker or dealer, who specializes in handling ebony (or other ornamental woods).

"Ebonist: Artisan who works chiefly with mahogany."

Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).

[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]