Appears to be Middle Age terminology. Perhaps the 'carnivalls' were in charge of planning and leading the ceremonies in preparation for Lent. The Catholic Church wanted to stop the people from celebrating pagan festivities. They knew it would be very difficult so they changed the celebration to Carnival and made Carnival a time of merriment before the serious Lent season. Carnival was derived from the Latin word carnelevamen which translates as farewell to flesh. Lent is a time for fasting and giving up things because of the crucifixion of Christ. They added the boeuf gras in the 1500s, which stood for the last meat eaten before Lent. The celebration spread from France to all Catholic countries and flourished during the Middle Ages. https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100216140658AAcK1zg Lee I was recently transcribing a perambulation of the Manor of Old Sodbury in Gloucestershire found in the manorial court records and, in the introduction, it lists those who walked the boundaries. It named the steward, the bailiff and the hayward and then it described a couple of men as being the 'carnivalls'. The word was clearly written at times. I have never come across this term before and can find no definition of it (other than the current definition of a carnival). Does anyone know what a carnivall did. The period concerned was the 1780s. Liz #6058. GWINNETT, etc. _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message