A lovers’ assignation gone very, very wrong. James Northcote’s c.1790 depiction of Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. In a portion of the scene that dramatic productions often omit, Friar Laurence appears in the tomb in the moments between Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths, offering to take Juliet to a convent. She refuses, and when he leaves kills herself. In the painting, Laurence, bearing a torch, appears on the stairs, looking down on the scene. Juliet has her hand raised, as if dismissing him. Romeo and Paris lie dead beside her.
15 October 2021
At its core, an assignation is an appointment. It can be an assignment to an office or duty, an allocation of land or money, or it can be a meeting. In current usage, it is often used to refer to a lover’s tryst, although that meaning does not appear until the Early Modern Period.
As one might guess from the -tion ending, assignation is from Latin via the Anglo-Norman assignacion. In French, the word dates to the fourteenth century and could mean an appointment of office or authority, a fixed date or appointment, or a promised payment, especially of a pension or allowance. In medieval Latin, the word meant much the same as in Anglo-Norman, but in classical Latin its meaning was limited to an assignment or allotment, especially of land. While the sense of an appointment or meeting was present in earlier French and medieval Latin texts, it was not present in Middle English.
Assignation appears in English starting in the fifteenth century. Here is an example from a 1432 decision of the English Privy Council giving the Earl of Warwick authority over King Henry VI’s education. Henry VI was the only child of Henry V, of Battle of Agincourt fame, and ascended to the throne when he was only nine months old. Warwick was the king’s tutor and this decision allowed Warwick to appoint and dismiss instructors as he saw fit.
He desireth therfore for the goode of hte Kyng and for his owen[e] seuretee to have powere auctoritee to name ordeyne and assigne and for cause þat shal be thought to hym resonable to remoeve þoo þat shal be aboute þe K[ing]’[s] persone of what estate or what estate or condic[i]on þat þei be, not entendyng to comp[re]hende in this desire the Steward Chamberlein Tresourer Contreoullor ne Sergeans of offices save suche as serve aboute þe Kyng’[s] persone and for his mouthe.
Responsio. As toward the namyng ordennaunce and assignac[i]on beforesaide, it is agreed, so that he take ynne noon of þe iiij. knyghtes ne squiers for the body withouten þadvis of my Lorde of Bedford hym beying in Englande, and hym beyng oute, of my Lorde of Gloucestre and of the remenant of the Kyng’[s] counseil.
By the end of the sixteenth century, we see English picking up the sense of assignation meaning the date set for a meeting. It appears in an anonymous 1590 translation of the Spanish romance The First Book of Amadis of Gaule, where it is used to refer to the time appointed for combat between two knights:
Amadis thus spake to the Damosels. Faire friends, I would not be knowen to any one, therefore till such time as the Knight come to the Combate, I intend to withhold my selfe from the place: and when the howre is, let your Squire bring me tidings thereof hither. Sir, quoth the Damosels, as yet there wants two dayes of the assignation, therefore if you please we will tarry with you: and our Squire shall goe into the Towne, to bring vs word when the Knight is arriued.
The sense of a lovers’ tryst appears in the middle of the seventeenth century. From a 1652 translation of Antoine Du Périer’s The Loves and Adventures of Clerio and Lozia:
But whilest he was floating upon the waves of these distracted irresolutions, the time of the assignation approached, wherein he was to visit his Love, for which end he dressed himself after the French fashion
And we see it again in William Lower’s 1658 play The Enchanted Lovers:
I'l be a witness of thy secret love;
Another shall inform me on't, Thimantes
Will tell me all the Plot; to him I'l go,
And give him notice of the assignation;
He'l come to let me know sure, if Diana
Appeareth there; or if it be Ismenia,
J shall do him a mischief; when Thimantes
Shall see his Mistress appoint secret meetings
To others then himself at such an hour
There is a 1699 use of assignation room to refer to the place of such a tryst, but this seems to be a singular, one-off use, as the phrase does not reappear. From a letter published under the title The Billet Doux, Sent by a Citizens-Wife in Dublin Tempting Me to Leudness: With My Answers to Her:
I am the more Confirm'd in my Thoughts, that it was a Snare laid for your Reputation, when I consider your way of carrying your self, the plainness of your Habit, and the influence which your Illness and late Scuffle must needs have had upon your outside; and especially, that the Letter was directed to your Auction-Room, for if the design had taken, then there would have been ground for Patrick to have Libell’d you in the Irish Flying Post, and to have call’d it an Assignation-Room for Strumpets, instead of an Auction-Room for Books; which would have effectually hinder'd any Mans frequenting it, who had but the least value for his Reputation.
But in nineteenth-century America, the term assignation house would become a regular euphemism for a brothel. From 23 March 1848 testimony about the conditions in the County Prison of Norwalk, Connecticut:
The one who is in bad company, is the son of a colored woman, who is in the State Prison for assault with intent to kill. She kept an assignation house in this city for colored people. She stabbed, in the dark, after the lights were blown out. It is supposed she aimed at another person, and thrust the dirk through her daughter’s neck.
So, assignation is an example of a linguistic principle that is akin to Gresham’s Law. Instead of bad money driving out the good, salacious meanings of words and phrases tend to drive out the unobjectionable and anodyne ones.
Sources:
Anglo-Norman Dictionary, 2007, s.v. assignacion.
The Billet Doux, Sent by a Citizens-Wife in Dublin Tempting Me to Leudness: With My Answers to Her. London: George Latkin, Jr., 1699, 210–11. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
“County Prison, Norwich, Connecticut,” 23 March 1848. Twenty-Third Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison Discipline Society. Boston: T.R. Marvin, 1848, 251. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Du Périer, Antoine. The Loves and Adventures of Clerio and Lozia. A Romance. Kirkman, Francis, trans. London: J.M., 1652, 16. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
The First Book of Amadis of Gaule. London: E. Allde, 1590, 67. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Latham, R.E., D.R. Howlett, and R.K. Ashdowne, eds. Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013, s.v. assignatio. Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Lewis, Charlton T. and Charles Short, eds. A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1879, s.v. assignatio. Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Lower, William. The Enchanted Lovers. The Hague, Adrian Vlack, 1658, 3.4, 60. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. assignacioun.
Nicolas, Harris. Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, vol. 4. London: Commissioners on the Public Records, 1835, 133. HathiTrust Digital Archive. London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius MS E.v., fol. 315.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. assignation, n.
Image credit: James Northcote, c.1790. Public domain image.