Monday’s Press referred to the Pittancer of Selby Tim FitzHigham (Memorial concert to mark centenary, October 22). I had never heard of a Pittancer in Selby or anywhere else. I lead a sheltered life.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (made available to me by the kind offices of Explore York) the usages of Pittancer include:
1706: Phillips’s New World of Words (new ed.) at Pietantiarius - The Pittancer or Officer in Collegiate Churches, who was to give out the several Pittances, according to the Appointment of the Founders or Donors.
1881: Notes & Queries 6th Ser. 4 20/1 - ‘The abbot, the pittancer, the chamberlain, the sacristan, and the cook all had separate estates assigned to them for their maintenance...’
1953: Speculum 28 585 - ‘She has gone through a vast mass of documents in the Archives Nationales - cartularies and rent-rolls of the abbey, accounts of the pittancer, [etc.]’
1993: B. Harvey Living & Dying in Eng. ii. 36: ‘The pittancer, who provided many of the extras consumed on feast days...’
Philip Johnson,
Greencliffe Drive,
Clifton, York
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