feehouse

1) A building where cattle were housed.

1395 Expensć circa Fehows, Whitby. The possible meanings of this word were discussed by Canon Atkinson in a lengthy footnote and he appeared to favour the meaning ‘treasury’. He noted also that the word gave rise to a by-name, and that point was taken up later by William Brown, the editor of the Guisbrough Chartulary. Two examples that he quoted were an undated reference to Robert de Fehus, probably from the thirteenth century, and 1321 William del Fehous, Lofthouse: in 1468 a tenement in Hawnby had both a fehous and a helmehous. Brown considered these to be references to cow-houses. The same word occurred in Mirfield in 1463 and several times in the records of Fountains Abbey, where the meaning is explicit: 1537 Robert Brown shall kepe yerely at the said Dare-house, loige and feahowse callyd Burthwaytt … two bulles, thre score kye and twentye and vij of their folowers, Bouthwaite. Feasegate in York is considered to derive from this word. See feeman, feemanlike, follower.

dates 1200-1299 1395 1463 1537

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