Definition
An archaic term for a charitable institution established to care for the diseased, poor, or infirm — in essence, a hospital or almshouse. The term appears in older English legal and ecclesiastical records as a variant of "spital," itself a contraction of "hospital." In legal usage, spittle referred specifically to endowed or founded charitable houses, often religious in origin, maintained for the reception and care of the sick.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To dig or stir with a small spade.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Refers the reader to "Spital," marked as obsolete; associated with Ben Jonson's usage.
The gap here is near-total. The modern common meaning — a minor agricultural action — has no connection to the legal meaning. The legal sense derives from an entirely separate etymological lineage through "hospital" and "hospice." A researcher encountering "spittle" in a historical deed, charter, or ecclesiastical record should not import any agricultural connotation; the word signals a charitable or medical institution.
Common Confusion
Spittle is easily confused with spital and sometimes with spittal, all of which appear in historical records as variant spellings of the same concept. None of these terms should be confused with the modern colloquial word "spittle" meaning saliva, which is an entirely unrelated word sharing only orthographic similarity. Researchers working with digitized historical corpora and full-text search tools should be alert to false matches generated by the saliva sense of the word.
Why It Matters in Research
This term matters almost exclusively to researchers working with pre-modern English legal documents — property records, ecclesiastical grants, royal charters, and charitable trust instruments from roughly the 13th through 17th centuries. Several practical traps exist.
First, the spelling is unstable. Historical records render this institution as spittle, spital, spittal, spyttell, and other variants. A single-spelling search in any corpus will miss the majority of relevant documents.
Second, the dissolution of spittles under Henry VIII (as part of the broader dissolution of monasteries and charitable houses) generated a significant body of legal documentation — conveyances, attainders, crown grants — in which the term appears. Researchers examining property title chains from Tudor England may encounter spittle as a predecessor institution in a chain of title.
Third, spittles sometimes had quasi-corporate legal status. Endowments made to a spittle could raise questions about perpetuities, charitable trusts, and the capacity of the institution to hold property — questions that were litigated in English ecclesiastical and common law courts and that bear on the validity of subsequent grants.
Fourth, in a Law Mind corpus context, this term connects outward to entries on charitable uses, mortmain, and the law of hospitals. A researcher who finds "spittle" in a source should immediately look to those adjacent areas of doctrine for the applicable legal framework.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) provides a brief but accurate entry: "A charitable foundation; a hospital for diseased people; a hospital," citing Cowell. John Cowell's Interpreter (1607) is the proximate source, and his usage reflects the standard Tudor and early Stuart legal understanding of the term.
The Webster's 1913 entry adds little beyond confirming the word's obsolescence and directing to "spital," with a citation to Ben Jonson — a reminder that the term was already archaic in literary English by the early 17th century, even as it persisted in legal and administrative documents somewhat longer.
No modern legal dictionary carries this term as a live entry, which is itself informative: spittle is a terminus for historical research, not a term of current doctrine. Historical sources are in agreement on the core meaning and no significant divergence exists among them.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is effectively limited to English legal history and jurisdictions whose property and charitable law derived from English common law. It does not appear as a term of art in American, Scottish, or civilian legal traditions, though researchers tracing early colonial land grants in jurisdictions that received English law may occasionally encounter it in title documents of English origin.