According to the Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, the governors of the inn in 1483 or 1484 ordered the payment of forty shillings for the ‘pekynnes’ newly made. Baildon, with some justification, felt puzzled by this strange word. He suggested that it might be a variant of ‘piggins’, which were small wooden barrels. In fact it seems rather to be a late instance of a word which occasionally appears in the year books. It must be one of the most mysterious words lurking in those arcane volumes, since it has almost entirely escaped the notice of philologists and lexicographers and has no recorded meaning or etymology. The latest instance of the word in the year books seems to be in Trinity term 1467: ‘Et Vavisor dit a ces compaignions que en les pecōns que deins les namz presedentz que cel addicion servant fuit debate en lescheker chambre…’. Unfortunately, the passage does not make sense as it stands in print, and there is no surviving manuscript text. Almost certainly ‘namz’, which is faithfully reproduced in all the editions down to 1680, is a misreading of ‘ii anz’, the reference being to a case decided two years earlier. Still there is something wrong; perhaps the first and third ‘que’ should be omitted. The sense seems to be that Vavasour cited the recent case to his fellows in the ‘pecons’ or ‘pecouns’, as having some bearing on the case currently before the court.