baston

plural bastons

1. obsoletegovernmentObsolete form of baton.
2. obsoleteA staff or cudgel.

   [fight] performed by bastons, clubs and coulstaves

   1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], (please specify |tome=1 or 2), London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Thoſe Chriſtian Captiues, which you keepe as ſlaues, […] when they chance to reſt or breath a ſpace, Are puniſht with Baſtones so grieuouſly, That they lie panting on the Gallies ſide.

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii

3. obsoleteAn officer bearing a painted staff, who formerly was in attendance upon the king's court to take into custody persons committed by the court.

   Baston (Bâton). A French word signifying a staff or club. In the statutes it sometimes denotes an officer in attendance upon the king's court with a painted staff, for the taking into custody persons committed by the court.

   1876, Herbert Mozley, George Whiteley, A Concise Dictionary of Law

   3 more examples

   Item, whereas divers people, at the suit of the party commanded to the prison of the Fleet, by judgment given in courts of our Lord the King, be oftentimes suffered to go at large by the warden of the prison, sometime by mainprise or by bail, and sometimes without any mainprise with a baston of the Fleet, and to go from thence into the country about their merchandises and other their business, and be there long out of prison nights and days, without their assent at whose suit they be judged, and without their gree thereof made, whereby a man cannot come to his right and recovery against such prisoners, to the great mischief and undoing of many people; It is ordained and assented, That from henceforth no warden of the Fleet shall suffer any prisoner there being by judgment at the suit of the party, to go out of prison by mainprise, bail, nor by baston, without making gree to the said parties of that whereof they were judged, unless it be by writ or other commandment of the King, upon pain to lose his office, and the keeping of the said prison.

   1377, Statute of the Realm 1, Richard II, cap. 12

   When any person or persons shall yield his or their body or bodies to the hands of the sheriff or other officer, upon any of the said writs of capias, that then the same party or parties that shall so yield themselves, shall remain in prison and custody of the said sheriff or other officer, without bail, baston or mainprize, in such like manner and form, to all intents and purposes, as he or they should or ought to have done, if he or they had been apprehended and taken upon the said writ of excommunicato capiendo.

   1562, Statute of the Realm 5, Elizabeth I, cap. 23

   Baston, is a French Word signifying a Staff or Club, and by the Statures of our Realm, denotes one of the Wardens of the Fleets Servants or Officers, that attendeth the King's Court with a painted Staff, for the taking into Custody such as are committed by the Court.

   '1607, John Cowell, The Interpreter of Words and Terms

plural Bastons

1. countableuncountableA surname from Old French.
2. countableuncountableA village and civil parish in South Kesteven district, Lincolnshire, England (OS grid ref TF1114).