Battel

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Battel, or Battels (of uncertain origin, possibly connected with "battle," a northern English word meaning to feed, or "batten") was a word used at the University of Oxford for the food ordered by members of the college as distinct from the usual "commons". Hence it also referred to college accounts for board and provisions supplied from kitchen and buttery, and, generally, the whole of a person's college accounts. Though the distinction from commons is no longer relevant, the term persists as the name for members' termly bills at many colleges at the Universities of Oxford and Durham.

Batteler, later a resident in a college, was originally a rank of students between commoners and servitors who, as the name implies, were not supplied with "commons", but only such provisions as they ordered for themselves.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.