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Gammerstang commented on the word piepowder court
(noun) - (1) In English law, the Court of the Dusty Foot. By a Court of Pie Poudre at Bartholomew Fair 1804 a young gentleman paid three pounds sixteen shillings for taking away an actress when she was going to perform, and five pounds for criminal conduct to the husband, the lady being married. --Joseph Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, 1841 (2) Piepowder is derived from the French words pied, a foot, and poudre, dusty. It is applied to a court held in fairs to yield justice to buyers and sellers, and for redress of disorders committed in them. It was so called because it was most usually held in summer, and suitors to this court were most commonly country clowns with dusty feet, and from the expedition in hearing and deciding the causes being before the dust goes off the shoes of the people's feet. --Joseph Taylor's Antiquitates Curiosæ, 1819 (3) Probably from pied puldreaux, a peddler. --George Mason's Supplement to Johnson's Dictionary, 1801
January 27, 2018