A Panthera with a silver-gilt lid?

[Vance Mead]

Does anyone know what a panthera might be, other than the animal?

In this case in Common Pleas, Alexander Horden, the administrator for his wife Dorothy, is suing Anne Barkeley for a debt of four pounds, a "pantheram" with a silver-gilt lid (operculo), a salt with a silver-gilt lid, and a dozen silver spoons. I suppose it must be some sort of tableware.

Hilary term, 1563, last entry this side:
http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT3/Eliz/CP40no1208/aCP40no1208fronts/IMG_0287.htm

[j***@gmail.com]

Post by Vance Mead
Does anyone know what a panthera might be, other than the animal?
In this case in Common Pleas, Alexander Horden, the administrator for his wife Dorothy, is suing Anne Barkeley for a debt of four pounds, a "pantheram" with a silver-gilt lid (operculo), a salt with a silver-gilt lid, and a dozen silver spoons. I suppose it must be some sort of tableware.
http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT3/Eliz/CP40no1208/aCP40no1208fronts/IMG_0287.htm

"Panthera" means "the whole of a single catch by a fowler," per https://worldofdictionary.com/dict/latin-english/meaning/panthera

By extension, a panthera in this case would be presumably be a deep platter, probably with a domed lid, big enough to serve an entire duck or goose.

[Vance Mead]

Thanks John. That makes sense.


By extension, a panthera in this case would be presumably be a deep platter, probably with a domed lid, big enough to serve an entire duck or goose.

[Matthew Tompkins]

Post by Vance Mead
Thanks John. That makes sense.
By extension, a panthera in this case would be presumably be a deep platter, probably with a domed lid, big enough to serve an entire duck or goose.

I'm a bit doubtful about this explanation. Panthera meaning 'a fowler's entire catch' was classical Latin - in medieval Latin its meaning had transferred slightly to mean a fowling net or snare and had entered medieval French and English, with that meaning, as panter or paunter (see OED under 'panter n. 1' or MED under 'paunter' or AND under 'panter' and 'pantir'.

An alternative explanation might be that this 'panthera is the medieval Latin word 'patera', meaning a'broad shallow dish, drinking cup', with -th- and an intruded -n- (or perhaps spelled 'pauthera'?). I have seen 'patena' (paten or chalice) in late medieval lists of household contents as 'pantena'.

http://logeion.uchicago.edu/index.html#patera

Matt Tompkins