1541 Probate - COMPLETED

[grantleydawn]

Inspired by the recent success, with my 1557 Probate wording, can anyone see a day number in this string of words.

?....? ?et? [and] ?probate? ?....mo? die [day?]
ffebruary Anno ?dm.? 15xlj [1541]

Regards
Grantley

PS; The Will is dated 24th November 1541 which makes Feb 1541 a possibility considering the calender started on the 25th March in those days.

[Roger in Sussex]

Grantley

Not sure of the word endings, but I think it reads

Exhibit[?] et probat[?] ultimo die
ffebruarij anno d

• m[ini] 15xli

It just might be octavo, not ultimo, so it is a choice between 28th or 8th.

What an odd way of writing the year, but it doesn't look like mdxli to me.

Better get some more opinions

Roger

[Roger in Sussex]

Sorry, I've somehow messed up the second line 

I'll write it without the []:

ffebruarij anno domini 15xlj

Roger

[grantleydawn]

Thankyou again, Roger.

I always follow up on your suggestions, to find places to solve future problems that I might get.

Everywhere I look on the net for Ultimo, I get "the month previous".

Based on the rest of the writing, the "Exh" of Exhibit is spot on.
Similary the lt & mo of Ultimo can be confirmed.

It certainly looks like Ultimo to me.

And your suggestion of "ffebruarij" has me scratching my head. You are right with the last letter looking like a "j". All the y's look like this.

Regards
Grantley

[Roger in Sussex]

Grantley,

A tip for you - very often where there are two "i" s at the end of a word, the last one is written  as "j". This is particularly true of numbers, where a final i is usually written as j, even if there is only one, as in xlj in this case. Probably a security device where numbers are concerned; no way you can alter xij to xiji and get away with it, whereas xii would be open to forgery.

Roger

[grantleydawn]

Thankyou Roger,

I had mastered the i & j usage in numbers but hadn't seen it in words. I keep forgetting that this stuff, that I am looking at, was written long before dictionaries and things were spelt phonetically.

Back to the word "ultimo", I still haven't been able to work out how you get 28th.

Regards
Grantley

[Roger in Sussex]

Grantley,

It's a bit difficult to explain in a few words, but I'll try - I'd never make a teacher!:

The endings of words are very significant in Latin. The Romans often used them where we would put a preposition before a noun, and also to show that an adjective described a particular noun.

ultimo goes with die to make "on the last day"
ffebruarii means "of February"
1557 wasn't a leap year, so the "last day of February" was the 28th.

Actually, dies meaning day is not the best word to try to explain this, as it belongs to a rare group of nouns known as the fifth declension, but I won't go into that here

Roger

[grantleydawn]

Once again, thankyou Roger.

I followed your logic, so maybe a teaching career can be open to you.

I got 19% for Latin & 23% for French, so I need help.

From 40 odd years ago, I remember the latin phase for "who is in the classroom?" (I won't embarrass myself with trying to spell it, after all those years.) I was always hung up with my answer, "Not me, if I can help it".

That was a very long year for me.

Regards
Grantley