Learn English – Deciphering two words from their Archaic spellings

archaicismsearly-modern-englishetymologymiddle-englishresearch

I am translating the 1509, first English Translation of Sebastian Brant's The Shyp of foyls (The Ship of Fools), and came across two words which, for the life of me, I could not construe or make legible.
The following are the two words, as they are spelled, in excruciatingly archaic fashion, in the text:

putueaunce

vtylyte I think I am willing to accept "utility" as the answer for this one–Thank you!

I think the second word (vtylyte) may be vitality, but after consulting my handy-dandy etymology dictionary, I discovered, much to my dismay, the word vitality is from the 1590s, although the word vital in its "essential to life" connotation dates back to the late 15th century.
I also thought the first word (putueaunce) might be petulance, but then again, the word's etymolgoy origin traces it back to at earliest the 1550s, "from French pétulance (early 16c.)" So no luck there.

Any help on cracking down these two archaic words would be lovely. I have attached scans of the two words as they appear directly from the 1509 text.

putueaunce

vtylyte


enter image description here

My translation:

These fools of their minds are so blind,
That naught they save to their own vitality,
On wise provision they set no thing their mind.

My translation:

I count him wise that thus doth set his brain,
And in the summer can make such (putueaunce?)
Whereby all his may have their sustenance.

Best Answer

These texts are from Middle English and most of the letters are composed of ııııııııııs.

In Middle English, several letters such as u ~ v, i, w, m, n etc., were written using a sequence of a particular short downstroke of the pen/quill, called a minim. A dotless i was a single minim:

Minim


  • i would be one minim: ı
  • u, v and n would be two: ıı
  • m and w would be three: ııı

So the word 'minim' itself would've been written:

ıııııııııı

It would be ten undifferentiated minims and would've been extremely confusing.


Purveyance

The first word in the question that looks like 'putueaunce' is purueaunce, which was a variant spelling for purveyance. There were identical minims for u and v, so they've been used interchangeably.

A Concise Dictionary of Middle English (Gutenberg) confirms purveaunce and also lists some other variants including purveyaunce, purveiance and purueance.


Or it could be porveaunce which was the Anglo-Norman spelling for purveyance (as pointed out by Andrew Leach and Greybeard in the comments beneath the question).

According to The Language of Emare - A Middle English Romance:

  1. i. PURUYANCE: ‘preparations’, <Anglo-Norman porveaunce ‘foresight, provision for the future, divine Providence’.484

There are lots of quotations for purueaunce/purveiaunce/porveaunce in the Middle English Compendium having many variants of the same spelling such as purveiaunce, purveianse, purveaunce, perveaunce, perviaunce pourveiaunce etc.


Dictionary of the Scots Language also has some quotes using different spellings for purveyance, some of which are purveance, purueianse, purueance, purvyaunce, pourveance, pourueaunce etc.


Here's a quote from Sebastian Brant's The Ship of Fools (vol.2) where purueaunce can be found:

Who that maketh for hymselfe no purueaunce
Of fruyt and corne in somer ...

Utility

The second word is utility (as pointed out by Kate Bunting). There were identical minims for u and v. Some sources such as the Oxford English Dictionary claim that they were not exactly the same but were graphic variants of the same letter. The Oxford English Dictionary says that v was used at the beginning of a word and u elsewhere.

The first letter in the second word is therefore a v.

Furthermore, Middle English scribes adopted a practice of replacing an i with a y. Take for example the word mine, it was min in Middle English, so it would've been written ıııııı and would've been indistinguishable from other combinations of relevant letters such as win, nim, nun etc. It was therefore replaced by a y (e.g. myn for 'mine').

The National Archive concurs that y was used for i, and u and v were interchangeable:

Use of y for i, for example myne = mine
Interchangeable i and j. Iohn = John. Maiestie = Majesty
Interchangeable u and v, such as euer = ever. vnto = unto

From Harvard University Website:

A single minim looks like:
Minim

Several minims can make up a single letter, or even a group of letters. In particular, minims are usually used for the following letters:
One minim: "i", "j"
Two minims: "n", "u", "v"
Three minims: "m", "w"


[How to read Medieval texts - Harvard University Website]



There are many citations for utility/utilité/vtylyte in the Middle English Compendium. Some of the spelling variants they've used for utility are vtylyte, vtilite, utilite etc.

Merriam Webster confirms the spelling of utility with an e:

Middle English utilite, from Anglo-French utilité, from Latin utilitat, utilitas, from utilis useful, from uti to use



The spelling vtylyte can also be found in the Dictionary of the Scots Language


Here's a quote from Sebastian Brant's The Ship of Fools (vol. 2) where utility is indeed written as vtylyte:

In respect of the wele of a hole comonte
Conioynynge thynge honest with his vtylyte

Related Topic