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In an English manorial court record from the late 17th century we have found:

Gratus erat : Thomas Stone quia egrotus erat

For context, this is part of a list of individuals who were required to attend ('owed suit to') court. Some are listed as attending ('Tenentes qui comparuerunt :'), and some are listed as not attending ('Tenentes qui non comparuerunt :') and are fined for their absence. And then we have Thomas, who sent a sick note and was not fined.

The literal translation of Gratus erat would be 'He was thankful' but is there a better or more specialised reading that would make sense in the context?

It is possible (given that the scribe concerned was particularly lazy and apparently unable to spell consistently) that Gratus is a contraction of a longer word but we have been unable to identify what that might be, and there is no indication if a contraction, nor does the phrase appear elsewhere in this set of records for comparison.

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  • Do you have any additional context (e.g. a picture of the record) that you could add? Are you sure, for instance, that nothing precedes "gratus erat"?
    – brianpck
    Commented Jan 20 at 16:30
  • @brianpck Image added.
    – ColeValleyGirl
    Commented Jan 21 at 13:45
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    well, from context it seems to mean something like he was "freed from the obligation" to attend or "was allowed/agreed not to attend" because of sickness. though, I don't think this will work in classical Latin.
    – d_e
    Commented Jan 21 at 15:46

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