Food and drink purchased on credit at Oxford or Cambridge University, or the bill for such provisions.
Plural and third-person singular of 'battel,' from Middle English, possibly related to provisions or supplies. The word became institutionalized in Oxbridge administrative vocabulary.
Your 'battels' bill at Oxford was literally your food debt—it combined housing, meals, and other services into one comprehensive college charge that students had to settle, much like a modern university's student account.
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