Note 213 — Chapter III · SURNAMES OF OFFICE.
Reading edition
Perhaps I ought to have placed ‘le Breviter’ in the dining-hall, as but another name for the steward or steward’s lieutenant. It was one among other duties of this officer to set down not merely the courses as they came in, but what and how much was placed before each, so that all might tally with the sum allowed for culinary expenses. This is alluded to in the Boke of Curtasye. Speaking of the steward’s offices in the hall, it says:—
‘At counting stuard schalle ben,
Tyll alle be brevet of wax so grene,
Wrytten into bokes, without let,
That before in tabuls hase been set.’
Further on, too, it adds—
‘The clerke of the kitchen shalle alle thyngs breve.’
The name itself lingered on uncorrupted for some time; for as simple ‘Breviter’ it is found in 1580 in a Cambridge University list. (Hist. C. C. Coll. Cam.) The corrupted ‘Bretter’ still exists, and is met with in ‘William Bretter,’ a name entered in the Calendar to Pleadings of Elizabeth’s reign.