malt

1) In tanning, when hides were placed in pits and vats, drawing comparison with the steeping of barley or grain in vats.

This word occurs in the 1639 apprenticeship indenture of Anthony Armitage of Thickhollins, a document in which his master granted him the dressing or malting of two oxe hides per annum for two of the last years of his term. The verb ‘to malt’ usually referred to the process in which barley or other grain was initially steeped in vats, but tanners may have compared this with the tanning process in which hides were placed in pits or vats. However, the example quoted remains an isolated use of the word in such a context.

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