Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
(Lord’s day). Did not stir out all day, but rose and dined below, and this day left off half skirts and put on a wastecoate, and my false taby wastecoate with gold lace; and in the evening there came Sir W. Batten to see me, and sat and supped very kindly with me, and so to prayers and to bed.
Monday 14 October 1661Saturday 12 October 1661
It was a year ago that General Harrison was hung, drawn and quartered:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/10/13/index.php#annotations
I’m a little surprised they weren’t worried about fanatics disturbing the peace.
(under)clothing
Could someone explain whether poor Sam left off half skirts because of his late “bruise” or becasue the need to keep up with new changing fashions for young galants (bruised or not)?
Wonder how Beth is taking the joy of having Sam home continuously? I note no happy mention of her delight in his constant presence.
Though she’s probably thanking God he can move about on his own today. Yesterday…
A call from upstairs… “Lisabeth!!…Jane!!”
“What does his Lordship want now, Jane?”
“Beggin’ your pardon, mum. Mr. Pepys wants another of them catawhatevers and some hot water. And his account book and journal.”
“Well?”
“He specially asked that you bring em, mum.”
Grrr…The first two times it was sweet; the sixth time…
“Elisabeth!!!…”
He missed a good sermon too/
Rev. Josselin’s diary for today
I haven’t quoted Josselin’s diary for some time because he really didn’t have much to say, but today’s entry is a beauty (the first sentence is somewhat of a brain teaser to figure it all out).
“God was good to me in manifold outward mercies, a very comfortable season my heart through grace not left as sometimes to vanity, evil is as my death, but when lord will you slay it in the actings thereof, all my sisters by my father and mother here at Colne with me supping this night together and not together again though my sister Ann went not until october 16. about noon, my sister Mary in town never coming up to see us in all that time.
This night my daughter Jane was taken sick very strangely, not able to go or help herself and so continued three or four days, and then somewhat better, like the gout or joint ague.”
Normal family, I doth believe, stuck with one, and another so near yet so far.
the half skirts
are half-shirts, according to the L&M edition. The weather is getting colder and Pepys adjusts his day-wear to suit the season.
False Taby
Can anyone tell us what “false taby” is? I assume that it’s some kind of (expensive) cloth, and SP’s waistcoat is only immitation taby, but what is taby?
Here’s the definition - it’s originally from Baghdad apparently. I presume that it was a rich type of watered or wavy coloured silk and that this is a cheaper imitation. Because he’s from a tailoring family he presumably knows his fabrics quite well.
And as to why he’s wearing it - it’s October and the weather is getting colder!
tab
Two waistcoats.
Note that Sam appears to wear two of these garments. The first one that he mentions is probably for warmth and the second one (false tabby) for ‘show’.
One for Language Hat: is this a common sequence for the inclusion of words into the English language, i.e. truncating the first part then adding an intermediate vowel?
The sequence here appears to be ‘attb - attab - attabee (in French pronunciation) - tabby.
Googling “al-Attbya” gets one hit:
“Don’t forget the tabby cat, named for al-Attbya, a Baghdad suburb, after
the prince Attab. One of Iraq’s better exports!”
From the watered description of the fabric, I’m guessing it is like what we call moire (silk or satin).
“One for Language Hat”
People, people, people! When you copy text with special characters, please pay attention to whether they carry over. Often they simply disappear, as here; this also happens with the OED. You have to add in the vowels (they’re almost always vowels, which had macrons or other non-HTML elements in the original) in order to have your version make any sense.
In this case, “Medieval Latin attab, from Arabic