Gavelle

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An obsolete term for rent or tribute owed to a lord ; an archaic word for a bundled sheaf of cut grain or reaped stalks
2. Historically, a payment or tribute due to a feudal lord ; a term for a binding of harvested corn stalks tied together as a sheaf
3. A rent or levy once paid to a landlord or overlord ; in older usage, a sheaf of grain bound up after the harvest

Etymology: Gavelle is an Old English word, "gafol" in its original form, meaning tribute, tax or rent paid to a lord or the crown. It survived in English for centuries as a term for feudal rent, especially rent owed on land held by a tenant, and was still recorded in legal and historical writing long after most people had stopped using it. The word belongs to a family of Germanic terms for payment. Its Old English relatives appear in Old High German and Old Norse, where the same root gave words for tribute and yield. The sense of obligation to a superior, rather than simple price, is what unites them. The Old French form "gavelle" came into English through Anglo-Norman legal usage after the Norman Conquest, and the two strands merged so that the English and French spellings coexisted. The French word itself related to "gavel," meaning a sheaf or bundle, which connects rent to the harvest that such payments often took as their form.