[Sca-cooks] cattle

[Johnna Holloway]

OED goes into the Etymology of course
:  Middle English catel , < Old Northern French catel (= central Old French chatel , Provençal captal , capdal ) < late Latin captāle , Latin capitāle , neuter of the adjective capitālis head-, principal,  used subst. in mediæval times in the sense ‘principal sum of money, capital, wealth, property’; compare modern English  = stock in trade. Thus Papias has ‘capitale , caput pecuniæ, capitis summa’, the Catholicon ‘capitale , pecunia’. 

Under the feudal system the application was confined to movable property or wealth, as being the only ‘personal’ property, and in English it was more and more identified with ‘beast held in possession, live stock’, which was almost the only use after 1500, exc. in the technical phrase ‘goods and catells (cattals)’ which survived till the 17th cent. In legal Anglo-Norman, the Norman catel was superseded at an early period by the Parisian chatel ; this continued to be used in the earlier and wider sense (subject however to legal definition), and has in modern times passed into a certain current use as chattel n, so that the phrase just cited is now also since 16th cent. ‘goods and chattels’. 

Down to 1500 the typical spelling was catel ; in the 16th cent. this became cattel , cattell ; only since 1600, and chiefly since 1700, spelt cattle . As this spelling is never found in earlier use, and, hence, never in the earlier sense, it would be possible to treat this sense as a separate word Catel , property; but on the other hand the modern sense has all the forms catel , cattel(l , cattle , according to date, and the history is better elucidated by treating the word as a historical whole. Chattel n. , however, as a distinct modern form and sense, is dealt with in its own place. 

The first definition is: Property, article of property, chattel. Obs. (Forms catel, cattel(l.)

II. live stock. (Forms catel, cattel(l, cattle.)

 4.  a. A collective term for live animals held as property, or reared to serve as food, or for the sake of their milk, skin, wool, etc.The application of the term has varied greatly, according to the circumstances of time and place, and has included camels, horses, asses, mules, oxen, cows, calves, sheep, lambs, goats, swine, etc. The tendency in recent times has been to restrict the term to the bovine genus, but the wider meaning is still found locally, and in many combinations. As this sense was originally comprised under 1, distinct instances before 1500 are scarce.
b.  Extended to fowls, bees, etc. Obs. or arch.

c1420  Pallad. on Husb.   i. 1057   So made that lysardes may not ascende, Ne wicked worme this catell [bees] for to offende.

Finally we come to

c. Now usually confined to, or understood of, bovine animals.

1555   R. Eden tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of the New World  i. x. f. 49,   Neat or cattall, becoome of bygger stature.

So actually it could mean a number of animals including bees, fowl, swine, goats, horses, etc.

Johnnae

On Mar 16, 2013, at 2:10 PM, Arianwen ferch Arthur wrote:

> there was a mention of cattle as proof that beef was availaboe...Now I know that we consider cattle to be beef, but I also remember that cattle refered to the horses… that conjures an interesting idea,  when did cattle become beef/dairy animals etc.
> Anyone know more detail?
> 
> Arianwen ferch Arthur