The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 32
X.—Buxom
X.—Buxom.
"Theirs, buxom health and rosy face,
Wild with invention ever new,
And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of dawn."
And thei with humble herte, full buxumly
Kneeling upon hir (their) knees, full reverently, him thanken all—
And nearly a century later, in the Boke of St. Albans (1486), it is laid down among the qualifications of a gentilmon that he should be "buxom to Goddis bydding," i.e., obedient to God's commandments.
"In the older marriage forms the rythm is more strongly marked than that which is now in use. According to the usage of Salisbury, the bride answered :—'I take thee, John, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, fro' this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in hele, to be bonere and buxom (that is, obedient—Ger., biegsam) in bedde and at borde tile death us do part (if Holy Church it will ordain), and thereto I plight thee my troth.' This in fact is the wedding, from wed pledge, or sponsio, the civil ceremony to which the Church added its benediction. The penultimate clause is evidently a Christian insertion. The form was adopted with some very slight alterations in the other English dioceses. Thus, in the province of York, or to speak more correctly in the kingdom of Northumbria, the bridegroom's promise was to the following effect:—'I take thee, Alice, to be my wedded wife, to have and to holde, at bedde and borde, for fairer for fouler, for better for worse, in sicknesse in hele, tile death us do part.'"
We may fairly infer that a buxom lass was a young woman who had reached an age at which she could lawfully promise to be búh-sum—buxom—obedient; that is, a marriageable young woman, and she now enjoys the exclusive monopoly of the word, though its origin is lost sight of.
But Palgrave is incorrect in assigning the modern German word biegsam, as the equivalent of buxom—búh-sum—obedient. I am not aware of a single instance of its use in such a sense. Undoubtedly, it has the same etymology—German biegan, to bow or bend—Anglo-Saxon, beogan, to bow—but the German word in modern use for obedient is exclusively gehorsam—obedience is gehorsamkeit. In Anglo-Saxon also we have similar words—gehyrsum, obedient; gehyrsumnes, obedience; gehyrsumian, to obey. Biegsam is not even used for obsequiousness, or servile obedience. It is simply pliant, bending, supple, flexible, and so forth. If there be any nice distinction in Anglo-Saxon between gehyrsum and búhsum, I incline to think that the latter inclines more to obsequious submission than the former. Gehorsam, German; gehoorzaam, Dutch; gehyrsum, Anglo-Saxon, are all probably from the word in the respective languages for to hear or listen to; and so the three words all imply a disposition to hear or listen patiently—disposed to listen: quite as much a mark of obedience as bowing.