troet (1121-35)

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troet (1121-35)

tro,  trou  

The meaning of this word seems to be at variance with its etymology and with some of the suggestions made in other dictionaries. TL 10,672 translates it as Tröglein, probably following FEW 17,370a: 'Anorm. troet „auge“ PhThBest'. It is hard to see how this makes sense in the context. Gdf and GdfC do not include the word. This passage in Best appears to be a compression of a section in the Latin Physiologus (generally held to be Philippe’s source), cf. Luigina Morini, ‘Il “Fisiologo” latino: “versio BIs”’, in eadem, Bestiari medievali (Torino: Einaudi, 1996), 3-102. The Physiologus text reads as follows: ‘Deinde religant pullos earum ad litus aque, que currit inter eos et formicas, et equas agunt trans aquam illam impositis clitellis super dorsum earum […] Formice autem videntes scrinia et clitellas super dorsum earum, comportant aureas harenas in eas, volentes eas ibi recondere’ (Morini, 30). The meaning of clitella is usually ‘pack-saddle’ (note though that it is glossed cofre, fardel, i.e. ‘pack, saddle-bag’ in TLL ii 19 [cf. coffre]); the choice of the Anglo-Norman word troet -- semingly a hapax in Best -- remains a little surprising.

s.

1horsesequit.small pack-saddle (perhaps so called because it had the form of a trough?)
( 1121-35; MS: s.xii3/3 )  Puis al tierz jur troez U petiz bercelez Sur les dos des jumenz Lur lient fermement  1073
This is an AND1 entry © MHRA 1977-1992: reproduced with permission. Digitisation funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom.
troet