avowry

English

Alternative forms

• advowry

Etymology

From Middle English avouerie, avourie, from Old French avoerie, avouerie.

Noun

avowry (countable and uncountable, plural avowries)

1. (law) The act of avowing and justifying in one's own right the distraining of goods.
   • 1764, Timothy Cunningham, A New and Complete Law-dictionary:

     Every avowant, and other person, that makes avowry or conusance, or justifies as baily, in replevin or second deliverance, for rent, custom or service, if the plaintiff be barred, shall recover damages and costs.

2. (historical) A form of medieval patronage in which colonial tenants, often from criminal backgrounds, were guaranteed protection by an English lord in exchange for the payment of a tax.
   • 1914, Ronald Stewart-Brown, “The Avowries of Cheshire”, in The English Historical Review, volume 29, number 113, pages 50–51:

     It would not be accurate to assume that the whole of the income from the avowries represented sums of 4d., though that seems to have been the standard annual payment, for there were, we know, other fees and income arising from avowry.

   • 1952, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire‎^[1], volume 103, page 42:

     The system of “avowries”, probably intended originally as a means first and foremost of colonizing a sparsely-populated land, created “a useful military reserve” composed in part at least of hardened criminals; […]

   • 1966, G. J. Hand, “The Status of the Native Irish in the Lordship of Ireland, 1272–1331”, in The Irish Jurist, volume 1, number 1, →JSTOR, page 101:

     Further, outside such a settled neighbourhood as Dublin there was also a system of ‘avowries’, rather like that in Wales and Chester: Irishmen paid English lords small sums to be under their protection.

   • 1987, Philip Morgan, War and Society in Medieval Cheshire, 1277–1403, →ISBN, page 7:

     The endemic violence characteristic of the Welsh March was further aggravated by the existence within the county of criminal sanctuaries or avowries which attracted criminal elements into Cheshire and into the retinues of the Hundred Years War.

3. (ecclesiastical) Advowson, the right to appoint to a benefice or office.
   • 1618, John Selden, The Historie of Tithes […], page 428:

     But it is as plain that before those Statuts, if the Rectors of two Churches of severall Auowries, had controuerted the right of a fourth part (or of the value of either of their Churches more) in Tithes, by suit commenced in the spirituall Court, the Patron of the Rector-defendant might haue had an Indicauit, to prohibit the prosecution and holding of the Plea. […] [Bracton] mentions no Writ of right of Aduowson of Tithes that should follow.

   • 1840 June 11, William Follett, edited by Ralph Barnes, Report of the Case of The Queen v. The President and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of St. Peter, in Exeter, […], published 1841, page 55:

     […] there is a reference to the Charter, and an enactment again, that as to those ecclesiastical dignities, which were of the avowry of the Crown, that the elections should be free, saving the rights of the Crown as the patron and founder of those benefices.

   • 1873, John Henry MacMahon, Church and State in England; Its Origin and Use, page 149:

     We have a further recital of previous legislation (35 Edward I.) showing that the Pope in detriment to the advowry of people of Holy Church had been in the habit of disposing of archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbeys, priories, and benefices, and reserving the first fruits for himself, […]

4. (obsolete) Avowal (open affirmation or admission).
   • 1629, Thomas Spencer, Maschil Vnmasked […], page 67:

     In the avowry of my Assumption, I will proue three things.

   • 1654, James Harwood, The Lord’s Prayer Unclasped […], pages 124–25:

     To this I answer, To will is of our own power, but to will what we should and do it, is of God […] But my last avowry prefers a quere to be discust, and tels us, even man in the state of grace, who hath a will to do good, findes no means to finish the work, he hath willed.

   • 1691, The Case of the Irish Protestants: In Relation to Recognising […] King William and Queen Mary, Stated and Resolved, page 20:

     As to the other sort, who perhaps with us acknowledge (at least, in Hypothesi,) Passive Obedience to be a Duty, but accuse us, not only of the neglect of it, but of Presumptions and wilful casting it off, we avow, and stand to our avowry, we have practised it all along in its due latitude, and we adhere to the practice of it at present.

5. (obsolete) A protector, especially a patron saint.

   Synonym: advowrer

   • 1509 March 31, Henry VII of England, “Extract from the Will of King Henry the Seventh”, in John Britton, editor, The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain […], volume 2, published 1809, page 18:

     All the said table, Crucifixe, Mary and John, and other Ymages of our advouries and xii Apostellis, to be of tymbre, covered and wrought with plate of fyne golde.

   • 1511 July 11, Robert Fabyan, “[Will of Robert Fabyan]”, in Robert Fabyan, edited by Henry Ellis, The New Chronicles of England and France: In Two Parts […], published 1811, page iii:

     And first I bequeth my soule to the infynite mercy of o^r. savio^r. Ihū Crist, and to the prayers and tuycion of his moost blissed moder our Lady seynt Mary, blissed seynt Cristoffer myn advowry, and to all the glorious company of heven […]

   • 1549 April 19, Hugh Latimer, “The seventh Sermon”, in Hugh Latimer, edited by Edward Arber, Seven Sermons before Edward VI, on Each Friday in Lent, 1549, published 1869, page 193:

     […] here we maye learne not to praye to Sayntes. […] Praye to thy father that is in heauen, to the creator, and not to any creature. And therfore awaye with these auowryes. Let god alone be oure auowry […]

Derived terms

• advowrer