Who these gentlemen were varies with the telling, but in all cases they postdate the appearance the phrase. Other explanations are that it refers to two gentlemen with the names Hook and Crook. Liberman and Quinion are careful researchers who are usually correct, but in this case would seem to be extending themselves beyond what the evidence supports. The practice existed, but no one has been able to connect it to the phrase. It’s a neat explanation that has been floating around since 1850, but the trouble is that no one has presented any examples of the phrase being used in this context. They would use hooks and crooks to pull down dead branches. Peasants were granted the right to collect dead wood from forests, but were not allowed to cut down trees. One explanation that has recently been revived by etymologists Anatoly Liberman and Michael Quinion is that the phrase has its origins in the medieval right of firebote. While we can’t say for certain this is the origin, this explanation is reasonable and fits the available evidence rather well.Īs for other explanations that have been proffered, none have strong (or any, really) evidence to support them. The available evidence indicates that the phrase is a reduplication that originally referenced the powers, strategies, and deceptions of Satan and those whom he corrupted. So we have both hooks and crooks associated with Satan and the earliest appearances of the phrase by hook or by crook used in the context of the corruption of the clergy. (and if they should have any high sacraments or undertakings from the high prelates, commonly they should buy them with poor men’s possessions with hook or with crook)īoth of these texts use the phrase in the context of buying ecclesiastical services and favors. & ȝif þei schullen haue ony heiȝe sacramentis or poyntis of þe heiȝe prelatis, comynly þei schulle bie hem wiþ pore mennus goodis wiþ hook or wiþ crok The second tract in the manuscript that uses the phrase is Why Poor Priests Have No Benefice: (and they the blessed sacraments compel men to buy all these with hook or crook) The first tract in this manuscript to use the phrase is The Great Sentence of the Curse Expounded:Īnd þei sillen sacramentis compellen men to bie alle þis wiþ hok or crok The manuscript was compiled after 1383, but the individual texts were composed earlier. That would come about a hundred years later in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Library, MS 296, a collection of Lollard tracts once ascribed to John Wyclif, but now known to be by a number of authors. Of course, these individual uses and the hooks and crooks in The Sayings of Saint Bernard aren’t arranged in the phrase that’s familiar to us today. (That it was through the devil’s crook I fell into gluttony.) Þa wære he þurrh þe deofless croc I gluterrnesse fallenn. The Ormulum manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 1), copied c. Crook was similarly used for Satan’s hook or clutches, as well as for tricks or deceptions by Satan and others since the end of the twelfth century. Hook was used in the fifteenth century to refer to Satan’s claws, and demons were commonly depicted in medieval illustrations as carrying meat hooks for use in roasting bodies in hell. The connection to Satan is strengthened when we look at the words individually.
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