custumal means A survey of a medieval English manor, listing each tenant and the customs under which the tenancy was held. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 89 out of 100.
Why this word is great
CUSTUMAL — [Noun] A written record or survey of the customs, rents, and services owed by tenants of a medieval English manor. From Late Latin custumale, the neuter form of the adjective custumalis ("pertaining to custom or duty"), used as a noun. Unlike a cartulary, which safeguards the grand charters of lordship, or a polyptych, which inventories assets for a distant crown, the custumal is the granular ledger of a local universe. It is the scribe's careful hand noting the Widow Agnes's three days' reaping at harvest; the weight of the heriot—the best beast—surrendered upon a death; the precise measure of barley owed from a sun-baked toft. This brittle parchment translates the turning of seasons and the fact of mortality into the quiet, inescapable arithmetic of a vanished order.
noun
- A survey of a medieval English manor, listing each tenant and the customs under which the tenancy was held.“However, it may have been too unwieldy for a large and growing city, and its business therefore narrowed as the other courts developed. According to an early thirteenth-century custumal, there were three chief folkmoots a year: […]”