1) When Chaucer and other fourteenth-century writers used this word they were clearly referring to a panier, used for transporting items such as sand, mortar and stone.
It occurs frequently in Yorkshire and neighbouring counties from the 1500s and the first examples there are to the panniers carried by pack-horses: 1563 3 parr of hotts, Brantfell
1610 a packe sadle … hotte, wanto and garth, Cottingley
1675 a yong man … was loading manure in a close … a child … rode home behind the hotts, Halifax. Sheard commented on the use of hotts in his History of Batley, saying that in the 1700s they were square boxes or crates, loaded with manure and carried over the backs of horses into the fields. They had opening doors on the underside which allowed the farmer to discharge the load easily. An unpublished inventory has the following entry: 1758 1 pair of Muckhotts, Fulstone.