avowry
/əˈvaʊɹi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 0.00 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The act of avowing and justifying in one's own right the distraining of goods.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A form of medieval patronage in which colonial tenants, often from criminal backgrounds, were guaranteed protection by an English lord in exchange for the payment of a tax.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Every avowant, and other person, that makes avowry or conusance, or justifies as baily, in replevin or second deliverance, for rent, custom or service, if the plaintiff be barred, shall recover damages and costs."
- "It would not be accurate to assume that the whole of the income from the avowries represented sums of 4d., though that seems to have been the standard annual payment, for there were, we know, other fees and income arising from avowry."
- "The system of “avowries”, probably intended originally as a means first and foremost of colonizing a sparsely-populated land, created “a useful military reserve” composed in part at least of hardened criminals; […]"
- "Further, outside such a settled neighbourhood as Dublin there was also a system of ‘avowries’, rather like that in Wales and Chester: Irishmen paid English lords small sums to be under their protection."
- "The endemic violence characteristic of the Welsh March was further aggravated by the existence within the county of criminal sanctuaries or avowries which attracted criminal elements into Cheshire and into the retinues of the Hundred Years War."
- "But it is as plain that before those Statuts, if the Rectors of two Churches of severall Auowries, had controuerted the right of a fourth part (or of the value of either of their Churches more) in Tithes, by suit commenced in the spirituall Court, the Patron of the Rector-defendant might haue had an Indicauit, to prohibit the prosecution and holding of the Plea. […] [Bracton] mentions no Writ of right of Aduowson of Tithes that should follow."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English avowry, avowrie, from Old French avoerie, avouerie (“protection, patronage”), equivalent to avoer or avouer (“to avow”) + -ie.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: avowry, avoerie