cattlen.

Etymology: 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, capital adj., used substantively in mediæval times in the sense ‘principal sum of money, capital, wealth, property’; compare modern English capital n.² = 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, except 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 In legal Anglo-Norman, the Norman catel was superseded at an early period by the Parisian chatel ; this continued to be used in the earlier and wider sense (subject however to legal definition), and has in modern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. Old French (besides the ch- forms, for which see chattel n.) had, according to dialect and date, the forms catel, katel, cathel, cateul, cateil. Hence the Middle English variants cathel, catail, -ayl. The Norman word was again latinized as catellum, catallum, the latter especially current in English Law Latin, whence the forms catal(l, cattal(l, so frequent in 15–16th cent., especially in the legal phrase ‘goods and cattals’.