Southeast Iowa

Southeast Iowa

MARCH 2000

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Entrance to one of the many Shimek State Forest units that are
home to Iowa deer.

BELOW ARE SOME
REAL NEAT TIDBITS OF
INFORMATION ON

MEDIEVAL TIMES........

ROGER ASCHAM

Roger Ascham was born in Kirby Wiske,
Yorkshire, in 1515, the youngest son of
John and Margaret Ascham. In 1530
Ascham entered St. John's College,
Cambridge, where he applied himself to
the study of Greek. He received his
bachelor's degree at the age of eighteen
on February 18, 1534 and became fellow
of the college in March. In 1537, at the
age of twenty-one, Ascham became
master of arts and began tutoring younger
students. Ascham became reader in
Greek around 1538 until Henry VIII
founded a lecture to take his place. One
of Ascham's favorite hobbies was
archery. In 1545 Ascham published the
treatise Toxophilus or the Schole or
Partitions of Shooting partly in defense of
archery against those who found the sport
unbefitting a scholar. The work was
dedicated to Henry VIII who enjoyed the
treatise so much that he granted Ascham a
pension: ten pounds a year. Ascham was
further honored by being assigned to tutor
Prince Edward. In 1548, after the death
of Princess Elizabeth's tutor, Ascham was
appointed to the post of teaching the
young woman who would become Queen
Elizabeth I. He held the post until 1550
when he left the post without her consent.
He was appointed secretary to Sir
Richard Morisine and accompanied him
to Germany later the same year. During
his trip Ascham wrote his Report and
Discourse of the Affairs in Germany
containing his impressions on the people
and culture of Germany. On the continent
he also visited Italy, later recounting "the
vices of Venice" in The Scholemaster.1
Morisine was recalled to England at the
death of Edward in 1553, returning
Ascham to Cambridge. During Ascham's
absence he had been appointed Latin
secretary to King Edward, a post he was
instated in also under Queen Mary I. In
1554 Ascham married Margaret Howe.
Upon Mary's death in 1558 he was
appointed secretary to Queen Elizabeth,
and in 1559 he was given the prebend of
Westwang in Yorkshire. In 1563 Ascham
was invited by Sir Edward Sackville to
write a treatise on education. This became
The Scholemaster, published
posthumously in 1570. Ascham took ill in
1568 with an unidentified disease and
died at the age of fifty-three. Hearing of
his death Queen Elizabeth is said to have
exclaimed: "I would rather have cast ten
thousand pounds in the sea than parted
from my Ascham."

Sources: . Johnson, Samuel. "The Life of
Ascham." Works. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1825. Available:
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/
~jlynch/Texts/ascham.html. . The Norton
Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed.
v1. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1993. 1991.

OSAGE ORANGE

Maclura pomifera

Family: Moraceae

Osage Orange

The genus Maclura contains about 12 species
native to: North America [1], with the rest in
tropical America and Africa. The genus name
maclura is after William Maclure (1763-1840), and
American geologist, while the species epithet
pomifera means bearing pomes or apples, in allusion
to the large, spherical fruits.

Maclura pomifera-Bodare Us, Bodark, Bodeck,
Bodock, Bois d'arc, Bowwood, Geelhout, Hedge,
Hedge Apple, Hedge-plant, Horse Apple, Maclura,
Mock Orange, Naranjo Chino, Osage, Osage
Apple-tree, Rootwood, Wild Orange, Yellow-wood.

Distribution

Native to Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, but
since escaped and naturalized throughout the
eastern and north western US.

The Tree

Osage Orange is a medium size tree with thorns
which grows in bottom lands. It attains a height of
60 feet and a diameter of 3 feet. The bark has an
orange cast and was used in making kaki dye
during W.W.I. It produces large spherical fruits the
size of large grapefruits in the fall.

The Wood

The sapwood of Osage Orange is narrow and light
yellow, while the heartwood is golden to bright
orange, which darkens upon exposure. The
heartwood can also contain red streaks. It has no
characteristic odor or taste. The wood is very hard,
heavy, tough, resilient and takes a high luster. It is
ring porous and commonly confused with black
locust (Robinia pseudoacacia).

Drying and Shrinkage

Working Properties: Osage Orange is difficult to
work due to its hardness. It holds glue and screws
well, but is difficult to nail.

Durability: Osage Orange is considered one of the
most durable woods in North America.

Preservation: No information available at this time.

Uses: : Fuel wood, fence posts, game calls, smoking
pipes, artificial limbs, crutches, insulator pins, wheel
rims & hubs of farm wagons, railroad ties, treenails,
machinery parts, archery, bows (Native
Americans), dye from roots, planted for windrows
and hedges.

Toxicity: The sap can cause dermatitis.

If you can find these books you will enjoy them as they are a group some of the best titles in Archery.

LEGENDS OF THE LONGBOW: A COMPLETE SET OF 29 VOLS.

The Derrydale Press, Inc. As New. Limited/Numbered. 8vo - over 7�" - 9�" tall. Complete 29 volume set.
These volumes are so pristine that each one is still protected by bubble wrap inside its original, individual
corrugated cardboard shipping box. Covers and spines are of dark green leather. Front covers have bright
gilt, blind-stamped lettering, decorative rules and an illustration of a Robin Hood-style longbowman.
Spines have bright gilt, blind-stamped lettering, decorative rules, an arrow and a miniature version of
"Robin Hood." A.e.g. Decorative eps have a repetitive pattern of the miniature longbowman. These were "A
Limited Edition of One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Copies."

1. "Archery," by Longman and Walrond;

2. "A Study of Bows and Arrows," by Saxton Pope;

3. "The Witchery of Archery," by Maurice Thompson;

4. "Target Archery," by Robert Elmer;

5. "Archery, the Technical Side," by Hickman, Nagler and Klopsteg;

6. "Toxophilus," by Roger Ascham and "Archery, its Theory and Practice," by Horace Ford;

7. "Turkish Archery," by Paul Klopsteg and "Modern Methods in Archery," by Reichart and Keasy;

8. "Book of the Longbow," by Robert Elmer;

9. "Hunting the Hard Way," by Howard Hill;

10. "Wild Adventure," by Howard Hill;

11. "Archery," by Robert Elmer;

12. "Hunting With the Bow and Arrow," by Saxton Pope;

13. " American Archery," by Robert Elmer;

14. "Fred Bear's Field Notes," by Fred Bear;

15. "The Archers Craft," by Adrian Hodgkin;

16. "The Book of Archery," by George Hansard,

17. "Sagittariues, " by Bob Swinehart;

18. "The Complete Book of the Bow and Arrow," by Howard Gillelan;

19. "Ishi in Two Worlds," by Kroeber;

20. "A Bibliography of Archery," by Lake and Wright;

21. "The Grey Goose Wing," by E.G. Heath;

22. "The Adventurous Bowmen," by Saxton Pope;

23. "Ye Sylvan Archer, Vol. I";

24. "Ye Sylvan Archer, Vol. II";

25. "Ye Sylvan Archer, Vol. III";

26. "Ye Sylvan Archer, Vol. IV";

27. "Ye Sylvan Archer, Vol. V";

28. "Ye Sylvan Archer, Vol. VI"; and

29. "Ye Sylvan Archer, Vol. VII."

Nos. 23-29 are reproductions of issues of the archery magazine, "Ye Sylvan Archer." An excellent
opportunity for the archery enthusiast to obtain this complete library in mint condition!. Bookseller
Inventory #005167

Women in Medieval Guilds

The role of the craft guild in medieval society, specifically in Western European society, has
been extensively researched and analyzed over the past 150 years.

A fair collection of written records concerning guild membership and structure has come down
to us, most often in the form of pipe rolls

of those taking out the freedom in a particular borough, and less commonly in the annals of
court proceedings involving disputes or other legal actions taken between guild members or
against them by municipal or private litigants. We have, for example, extensive records of the
guilds in York, London, Leicester, Dublin, Coventry, Bristol, and Gloucester from the 13th
century onward, and careful study of these reveals a wealth of information about the
sociopolitical characteristics of the artisan and merchant classes in these locations.

The intent of this treatise is to explore some of the roles played by women in the structure and
functioning of the collective organization of craftspeople in a representative medieval city, in
this case York. York was a thriving merchant center of perhaps 8,000-15,000 inhabitants
(maximum) during the period covered by this paper (late 13th through early 16th centuries),
with hundreds of specialized artisans contributing to its ranks. The York Register of Freemen,
which forms the backbone of the facts and speculations presented herein, runs continuously
from 1273 to the early 16th century, and as such is a priceless 'core sample' of the makeup of
the artisan class during this period.

Unfortunately for our research, medieval administrative records only included those people who
had recognized public status, that is men. Judicial records mention women on occasion, but too
often it was the husband, as head of the household, who was held accountable for the actions
of his wife and thus the role of women was further obscured in official accounts. Of course,
few, if any, male artisans operated on their own. In most cases they did not set up shop until
after they were married, and this made them the ostensible head of a production system that
included the wife, children, and sometimes other relatives as crucial components. Throughout
much of the later Middle Ages, at least, the role of women can be detected obliquely through
references in both public and private records. The widely accepted law of femme sole allowed
women to trade in their own right, although most commonly this right was not exercised except
in the case of a widow continuing her husband's craft.

For the purpose of this discussion, I will arrange artisans into convenient categories, keeping in
mind that such arbitrary distinctions frequently would have had little if any meaning in
contemporary usage. Artisans seldom kept to only one craft; the economic realities of the time
made them opportunists who dealt in whatever commodity would gain them a benefit under a
given set of circumstances.

Following convention, I will separate craft guilds into six broad categories: Victuallers, Textile
Trades, Leather Trades, Metal Trades, Building Trades, and Others. The logical basis for these
distinctions lies in the distribution of artisans across occupations and the associations they
tended to form, although these are by no means uniform.

Victuallers

The victualling industry included bakers, brewers, butchers, fishmongers, graziers, hostelers,
hucksters, millers, regraters, tapsters, taverners, vintners, and many other more obscure
specialties. I will touch upon several of these below.

Bakers made and sold bread of different varieties, including brown, white, black, and 'horse.'
White bread, also called wastel, simnel, cocket, or domain bread, was the finest and most costly
(about a penny a loaf). Brown bread, also called bastard wastel and bastard simnel, was next at
about a halfpenny a loaf. Lowest on the scale was black bread, or 'panis integer' at about a
farthing. Horse was an extremely coarse form made from the lowest quality flour and not
generally considered fit for human consumption.

Because bread was the staple food throughout the Middle Ages, regulations concerning bakers
were in force from an early time. Most of these involved penalties for insufficient bread in the
community, or for poor quality product.

While a great deal of the bread offered for sale was likely to have been baked by women, few
women are recorded as master bakers in the official roles. This is a pattern that persists
throughout the litany of crafts, and necessitates a fair amount of speculation when speaking of
the overall economic and political impact of women in the context of craft guilds and the goods
they manufactured.

Brewers made alcoholic beverages, specifically those made by fermenting grain without
distillation. This encompassed mostly ales (in later years ale brewers were sometimes
designated 'tiplers') in the early period, but with the introduction of hops brewers began to
experiment with beer as well. It was viewed with some suspicion at first, and even militated
against by some, but eventually hopped beverages gained quite a wide popularity and even
supplanted ale as the principal beverage of the artisan and laboring classes. In some locations,
clear distinctions were made between brewers, vintners, and tapsters, in some they were
blurred. Vintners made wine, generally a drink for the upper classes. Tapsters served ale and
beer, but theoretically were forbidden actually to make it themselves. This was not a widely-
enforced restriction, however.

The most common association most people will call to mind concerning women in this context
will be that of the alewife. Indeed, women were quite common in this industry, the alewife in
particular referring predominantly to a woman whose husband was in some other trade, usually
bakers (the common use of yeast for the two processes of baking and brewing drove this
relationship). Evidence suggests that women made as much if not more of the ale and beer
served in the Middle Ages as men. Butchers were widespread and consistently prosperous, in
comparison with othervictuallers. Butchers supplied most of the beef consumed; indeed, many
regulations required them to supply beef before any other type of meat. In fact, many, many
regulations were passed to control virtually every aspect of the professional lives of butchers,
but the very bulk of them suggests that they were largely ineffectual, especially given the
wealth of most established butchers. Butchers also sold mutton, veal, and pork, but pigs, in
particular, were common household livestock and as such were not in as great demand from
commercial sources. Graziers were supposed to be the ones who actually raised the livestock,
but by the end of the fifteenth century butcher-graziers had monopolized most of the grazing
land near urban centers, and driven the graziers further afield. Some cities, like York, took
steps to halt this, as it allowed butchers to control their own supply prices, but others did little or
nothing. Butchers also supplied the raw materials for tanners, chandlers, and other trades, and
benefitted from this symbiosis.

Women often continued as butchers after the death of their spouses, and in this one area
seemed to be somewhat immune from the protection usually afforded women by being social
'non-entities.' Butcher's wives, not the butchers themselves, were frequently fined for leaving
dung and entrails in the street. The monetary effect of these fines was of course identical to
what it would have been if the butchers had been fined directly, but it is curious that court
records name women specifically far more often in these offenses than in diverse others.
Fishmongers were of two varieties: salt and fresh, corresponding to the habitats of their
respective goods. Freshwater fish sellers tended to be local and small-time; saltwater
fishmongers tended to be of the merchant class and international in scope.

Salt fishmongery seems to have harbored more women than did fresh, for reasons that are not
altogether clear to me. While comparatively few people, men or women, listed themselves as
fishmongers, the apparent number of people peddling fish was enormous, suggesting that
fishmongery was practiced frequently by people with no official connection to the craft. Of
course, proximity to fishing grounds played a large part in availability and number of
fishmongers. Salted fish was common for long voyages or during winter months, but fresh fish
was preferred, and less expensive. Hostelersran public houses that offered combinations of
food, drink, and lodging. In later years the term hosteler was replaced by innkeeper, and the
profession grew more respectable with time. It was quite common for a master of one craft,
especially those in other quarters of the victualling industry, to have a wife who ran an inn,
usually from spare rooms in the main house but sometimes in a separate building. It was
uncommon for men to take out the freedom as hostelers before the fifteenth century; indeed,
none are recorded in York until 1396. The first female hosteler to take out the freedom appears
in 1526. Interestingly, though, court records show plenty of instances of hostelers of both sexes
being prosecuted for one offense or another prior to this date. Probably the gradual increase in
acceptability of hosteler as a bona fide profession late in this period led to open declaration.
Hucksters and Regraters were similar. Hucksters sold a variety of items from stalls,the street,
or other shops, attracting potential customers by yelling their pitches over the noise of the
market crowds. Regraters were resellers, or middlemen, who bought goods 'wholesale' and
resold them, either to patrons directly or to hucksters and other similar retailers. Both of these
crafts were largely populated by women, although as usual little official record exists of their
activities.

Textile Trades

The textile industry harbored such diverse crafts as broggers (wool-sellers), cappers, carders,
drapers, dyers, embroiderers, fullers, hatters, hosiers, knitters, litsters, mercers, shearmen,
spinners, tailors, tapiters, vestmentmakers, and weavers. It is evident that women played a
critical role in the skilled workforce of the textile industry.

Drapers were cloth merchants, although the original definition of the term included those who
made cloth (woolen or linen) as well. For obvious reasons there were close ties between
drapers and tailors, and much crossover of function was to be seen. Because drapers were
often very successful, they tended to cross the boundaries between the artisan and merchant
classes with some regularity. While drapers no doubt employed women, little record of this
exists.

Dyers and Litsters were at first essentially identical, i.e., people who used vegetable or animal-
derived dyes to color cloth at various stages during its production. As time progressed a
distinction came to be made between the listers, who did the actual dyeing, and dyers, who
frequently dealt only in the tools and raw materials or dyestuffs. Women often continued in this
craft after their husbands.

Tailors found that their fortunes were inversely related to those of the drapers. Early in the
period, drapers were dominant in the industry, but as their fortunes and status gradually
declined, the tailors, who had been only moderately successful, grew in stature and economic
influence until by the sixteenth century tailors were widely considered part of the merchant
class. Women played important roles as tailors, but the vast majority of them took commissions
from the male master tailors, and thus remained in perpetual obscurity themselves. Some few
stood out in wills, however; Margaret de Knaresburgh in 1398 bequeathed two gold rings and
six silver spoons.

Weavers wove cloth, either from wool or flax (linen). Combing, carding, and spinning to
prepare wool for weaving was done almost exclusively by women. Although many women
undoubtedly worked as weavers, usually for their husbands or male relatives, very few actually
gained their freedom as weavers. Isabella Nonhouse, made free in 1441, two years after the
death of her husband, is the only known female master weaver in the York register. Those who
bought their freedom sometimes became true entrepreneurs in this field, organizing small
groups of female laborers. The poorer women who carded and spun were paid piece-rates,
either by the pound of yarn produced or by the pound of wool delivered to be spun. Many of
them had to rent spinning wheels, as they could not afford to own one themselves. There are
multiple records of husbands leaving looms and associated materials to their wives to continue
the family business, however, so it is safe to assume that many women did pursue the craft
after their husbands' deaths.

Women also played significant roles as cappers, embroiderers, knitters, and vestmentmakers
(for the clergy).

Leather Trades

These included bottlemakers, bowgemakers (bagmakers), cardmakers, chapmen, cobblers,
cordwainers (shoemakers), curriers, girdlers, glovers, horners, leatherworkers,
parchmentmakers, patoners, pointmakers, pouchmakers, saddlers, sheathers, skinners, tanners,
tawers, and whitawers.

The leather industry processed animal skins for use in a wide variety of products. The two
principal types of preparation were tanning and tawing. Tanning involves soaking leather in a
series of liquors (called woozes) of grading strength over a period of months until all the water
has been driven out and replaced by tannin from oak bark. Red leather has been simply tanned;
black leather has been tanned and curried, or thinned, dyed, and treated with tallow for
suppleness. Tawing was a dry process, consisting of adding alum or oil to the hide, usually with
a mixture of salt, then stretched and softened with oil and egg yolks. This was an expensive
and laborious process, but it produced exceptional leather. Tawing produced white leather, so
tawers were sometimes called whitawers.

Cardmakers set metal teeth into rectangular leather pieces to be used to card, or tease, wool.
Probably the great majority of these craftspeople were women, as regulations concerning the
craft frequently employ the feminine pronouns.

Cordwainers, or shoemakers, were so called because they worked with cordwain, or cordovan
leather, named for the Spanish process by which it was tawed. While shoes were certainly
made from cordwain, they were made from a wide variety of other leather and even from
cloth; the designation is one of convenience only. Early in the period cordwainers manufactured
shoes, whereas cobblers merely repaired them. By the end of the sixteenth century, however,
cobbler had assumed both meanings. The trade of cordwaining was inextricably bound up with
those of tanning, tawing, and currying, and much struggle for power took place among these
rival crafts. Here and there are hints (as in wills) of great numbers of women employed as
shoemakers, although registers and roles mention them seldom in this context.

Women did much work assisting skinners, by sewing together skins. They also contributed
greatly as glovers, pouchmakers, bagmakers, bottlemakers, and especially parchmentmakers. In
some areas, in fact, women dominated the parchmentmaking craft.

Metal Trades

Armorers, bell-founders, bladesmiths, brakemen, braziers, cutlers, ferbers, ferrours, founders,
glaziers, goldbeaters, goldsmiths, hookmakers, ironmongers, latoners, lockyers, lorimers,
marshalls, painters, pewterers, pinners, plumbers, silversmiths, smiths, spurriers, stainers,
wiredrawers.

Metal workers constituted less than 10% of the total artisan population, overall. They were
categorized not so much by individual craft, but by the type of metal they employed: iron and
steel, non-ferrous metals such as copper, pewter, bronze, and brass, and precious metals such
as gold and silver.

Armorers were usually quite successful, but as the period progressed became less so as armor
gradually waned in necessity with the introduction of more powerful projectile weapons. At
least one woman, Agnes Hecche of York, was trained by her father as an armorer. Ferbers or
furbers refurbished worn or damaged armor. One specialized form of armor, mail, made from
drawn wire, was often constructed by women, who here used their patience and dexterity to
great advantage. While the actual drawing of iron wire was very strenuous, copper wire was
more easily drawn and this craft was populated by a fair number of women.

The most prestigious products of medieval foundries were probably bells. Bell-founders
frequently attained high positions in civic society, becoming even mayor and MP. Quite often
the trades of bellmaker and potter or brazier were combined, since the techniques of
manufacture were associated. While little if any record exists of women specifically as
bellmakers, evidence can be found to show that they were potters, some, such as Margaret
Soureby in York and Joan Hille in London operating large and respectable foundries, employing
many male apprentices.

Goldsmiths and silversmiths, not surprisingly, often rose to wealth and lofty social status. Not all
of them prospered, however, and the fortunes of even the richest of them were precarious and
subject to considerable fluctuation.

While female precious metal smiths were rare, women excelled in the manufacture of fine
jewelry. In Paris, in fact, some of the work in precious metals was reserved specifically for
womens' guilds. Especially in major continental cities, independent female jewelerswere not
uncommon.

Smiths made a wide variety of metal items. While their work was often very strenuous and
could involve lifting substantial weight, there is evidence that women assisted, at the very least
by tending the fires, preparing tools, and performing tasks such as quenching and tempering.
This assertion is borne out even by a few surviving illuminations from various manuscripts.

Building Trades

Builders, carpenters, cartwrights, carvers, dawbers, dykers, earthwallers, glaziers,
groundwallers,joiners, masons, pavers, plasterers, reeders, sawyers, shipwrights, tilers,
wheelwrights.

Builders, like other craftsmen, probably involved their families in their craft. Katherine Rolf of
Cambridge, as an example, took time off from her customary occupations of spinning, candle-
making, and threshing for the nuns of St. Radegund's to help thatch the roof of the nunnery. At
least four specific trades were known to have supported women who survived their husband
and continued in his craft: carpenter, shipwright, plasterer, and plumber.

I can find no direct evidence that women were employed as carvers or glaziers, but given the
nature of the work (glaziers painted on glass), it seems highly likely that they were involved in
these crafts. In the case of glaziers, especially, few records of their doings exist at all, yet much
of their exquisite work has survived, providing mute testimony to their great skill and artistic
integrity.

Other Trades

Apothecaries, barbers, bowers, chandlers, coopers, fletchers, hairsters, mariners,
moneychangers, ropers, scribes, stringmakers, turners.

The above is really only a representative list of a much larger body of crafts and trades that do
not readily fit into even the broad categories I have chosen for this paper. Women play an
important role in several of them, and so I have found them worthy of inclusion.

Chandlers were a small group, but usually a disproportionately affluent one. Mostly they dealt
with wax candles, not tallow ones (who were as often as not made by butchers or skinners
because of their access to animal fat). The demand for wax candles, especially from the
church, was consistently high throughout the period. In addition, most people left provision in
their will that as many candles as they could afford be burned at their memorial services. Many
chandlers specialized in casting wax into images and other complex shapes that could be left on
altars as offerings, which were then periodically collected and melted down for candles by the
church officials. Because chandlers were relatively well off, the incidence of widows taking
over the family business was high, bringing many women into the front lines of commerce in
this field.

When the English longbow became a standard armament during the Welsh wars of Edward I
(c. 1277), the crafts of bower (bowyer), stringmaker, and fletcher took on added importance.
Not until the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) did the government take responsibility for
equipping its troops with weapons, so the somewhat motley armies of earlier kings relied on
local artisans to provide them with such before they answered the levies. Despite the reputation
that English yew has acquired for being the premier bow wood, contemporary bowers thought
it too open-grained and preferred yew imported from the Baltic. Women played a large role as
stringmakers, most of them probably the wives of craftsmen in other industries. Elizabeth
Baker of York was made free as a stringmaker in 1467.

Women were scribes, especially as lay scriptoria became more widespread and workshops
were established in the urban areas, but this subject is one I would rather treat by itself in a
separate paper.

In conclusion, I find that, while evidence of women's contributions to medieval society must
often be hunted for between the lines, it is there. There can be little doubt that the roles played
by women, either as direct participants in mercantile affairs or as infrastructure for a given
craft, can hardly be overstated. Much of what we think of as medieval culture, and thus what
has become our modern way of life, is directly and unequivocally the product of the creative
and intellectual talents of women.

Bibliography

Charles, L. and Duffin, L. (eds), Women and Work in Pre-Industrial England. London:
Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1985.

Swanson, H., Medieval Artisans. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

Sharar, S. The Fourth Estate: a History of Women in the Middle Ages. London: Routledge

Kegan & Paul, 1983.

For clarifications of spellings and often of basic meaning, I am forever indebted to the Compact

Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition), without which my life would be discernibly poorer.

R.G.Ferrell Essay's http://lonestar.texas.net/~ferrell/ was the author of the above

This page last modified on Saturday,December 28, 2002