Law. Obs. exc. Hist. [f. FIRE sb. + BOOT sb.1 Cf. OE. fýr-béla one who ‘beets’ or mends a fire.] The repair or mending of a fire; wood used for this purpose, fuel (granted by the landlord to the tenant); the right of a tenant to take fire-wood from off the landlord’s estate.
1484. Lease of Manor of Scotter (N. W. Linc. Gloss.). ‘12 carect subbosci pro le heybote et octo focal pro fyrbot.’
1557. Tusser, 100 Points Husb., lxv.
| A blocke at the harthe, cowched close for thy life: | |
| Shall helpe to saue fier bote and please well thy wife. |
1559. Will of E. Boraston (Somerset Ho.). My saide wyf shall … have certayne underwoodes appoynted to her by my executours towardes her fyreboote.
1657. Sir H. Grimstone, in Croke’s Reports, I. 477. Those trees were long since … fit only for fire-boot, and not for timber.
1726. Ayliffe, Parergon, 506. It has been agreed, that if a Man cuts Trees for Houseboot, Hedgeboot, Cartboot, Ploughboot, and Fireboot, Tithes shall not be paid for them.
1824. Hitchins & Drew, Cornwall, II. 214. The figure of a hook and a crook, in memory of that privilege granted by him to the poor of Bodmin, for gathering for fire-boot and house-boot, such boughs and branches of oak trees in his contiguous wood of Dunmere, as they could reach or come at with a hook and a crook without damage to the trees.
1888. Athenæum, 12 May, 596/3. The privilege of firebote in the lord’s wood, that is, gathering sticks for fuel.
