Illustration of socage, the requirement of service to a lord’s estate in a 14th-century manuscript, peasants harvesting wheat for their lord
11 March 2024
Tacit is an adjective that denotes something that is silently or wordlessly understood. It’s etymology is quite straightforward, a borrowing from the Latin tacitus, the past participle of the verb tacere, meaning to be silent.
Thomas Eliot’s 1538 dictionary records the Latin. Early dictionaries like this one included only foreign words, proper nouns, or otherwise “hard” words. It’s an indication that the word might be encountered by an English reader, but not necessarily that it had yet been assimilated into the language:
Tacenda, those thynges whiche are not to be spoken.
Taceo, ta, cui, tacêre, to kepe sylence, to be in reste, to be quyete, to be sure.
Tacito pede, softely, by stelthe.
Tacitum est, not a worde is spoken of it.
Taciturnitas, tatis, sylence.
Tacitus, he that holdethe his peace, and is secrete.
Tacitus, citius audies, be styl, thou shalt here the sooner.
Tacitè, without speakynge one worde.
Eliot includes a nearly identical set of entries in his 1542 Bibliotheca Eliotæ.
The earliest use of tacit in English discourse that I know of is in Richard Taverner’s 1540 The Principal Lawes, Customes, and Estatutes of England, in a passage that describes what constitutes an unspoken manumission of a serf:
Lykewyse yf the Lorde maketh a feoffement to his villayne, and maketh vnto hym lyuery of seysin, thys also is an enfranchisment and secret manumission[n]. Brefely to speke, where so euer the lorde compelleth his vyllaine by the course of the lawe to do that thyng that he myght otherwyse e[n]force him to do or to suffre without the auctoritie and compulsion of the lawe, he doth by implication enfranchise his villayne, as if the lorde wyl bryng agaynst his villayne an action of det, an action of accompt, of couenant or of trespace, these and such lyke be in the eye of the lawe enfranchisementes and manumissions, bycause that the lorde in all these cases may haue the effecte and purpose of his suite (that is to saye) the goodes, catels, and correctio[n] of his bondman without the compulsion of the lawe euen by his owne propre power and authoritie whyche he hath vpon hys villayne. But if the lord doth sue his vilayne by an appeale of felonye, the villayne beyng lawfully endyted of the same before, this is no tacite manumission or infranchiseme[n]te, for the lorde though he haue power to beate his villaine and to spoyle him of his goodes, yet he can not by the lawe of this Realme put him to deathe.
(Likewise, if a lord invests one of his serfs with a fief, and gives him title to land, this is also an enfranchisement and silent manumission. In short, wherever a lord compels one of his serfs by recourse to the law to do something that he might otherwise have the power to make him do without the authority and compulsion of the law, he by implication enfranchises that serf; for example, if a lord brings against one of his serfs an action of debt, an action of account, of covenant, or of trespass, these and like actions are enfranchisements and manumissions in the eyes of the law, because a lord in all these cases has the effect and purpose of his suit, that is to say the goods, chattel, and correction of his bondman without compulsion of the law by his own proper power and authority which he has over his serfs. But if a lord sues one of his serfs by an appeal of felony, the serf being lawfully indicted of the same, this is no tacit manumission or enfranchisement, for a lord, though he has power to beat his serfs and to take their goods, he cannot by the law of this realm put them to death.)
In other words, if a lord takes a legal action that treats a serf as if they were free, then it is a tacit admission that the serf is indeed a free person, and the serf is indeed free.
Since the sixteenth century, tacit has pretty much come through the centuries unchanged in meaning or form.
Sources:
Eliot, Thomas. The Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght. London: Thomas Bertelet, 1538, sig. Bb.6r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
———. Bibliotheca Eliotæ. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1542, s.v. tacitè. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Lexicons of Early Modern English (LEME). Accessed 28 January 2024.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. tacit, adj.
Taverner, Richard. The Principal Lawes, Customes, and Estatutes of England. London: 1540, fol. 52v–53r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Image credit: Queen Mary Psalter, British Library, Royal MS 2 B.vii, fol. 78v. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.