Forms: 7–8 beatille, beatilla, beatilia, 9 battalia. [ad. F. béatilles ‘tit-bits, as cocks’ combs, sweetbreads, etc. in a pie’; also in convents applied to small pieces of needlework (as pincushions, ‘samplers’ embroidered with sacred subjects) worked by nuns. The latter is the original sense; Cotgr. has the intermediate ‘trinkets or vaine toyes, wherewith finicall people decke themselues; trifles, nifles, odde attires’; whence ‘trifles’ in cookery. Du Cange gives med.L. beatillæ, which he regards as formed from the Fr.; but its existence in early conventual L. seems proved by Sp. beatilla ‘a sort of thin fine linen.’ The original sense was evidently ‘small blessed articles,’ the form being dim. of L. beātus. The corruption to battalia is due to ‘popular etymology.’]
1664. Evelyn, Sylva (1770), 169. We here use Chesnuts in stewed meats and Beatille pies. Ibid., 272. Other ingredients in Beatilla-pies.
1672. Ashmole, Inst. Ord. Garter, 605. The Supper for the Soveraign … First Course, 1. Ducklings boyled … 19. Beatilia pye.
1706. Phillips, Beatilles, certain Tit-bits, as Cocks-combs, Goose-gibbets, Ghizzards, Livers, and other Appurtenances of Fowls, to be put into Pies, Pottages, etc.
1837. Disraeli, Venetia, I. iv. (1871), 15. That masterpiece of the culinary art, a grand battalia pie.
