Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 — Notes to the Canterbury Tales

417. The ascendent is the point of the zodiacal circle which happens to be ascending above the horizon at a given moment, such as the moment of birth. Upon it depended the drawing out of a man's horoscope, which represented the aspect of the heavens at some given critical moment. The moment, in the present case, is that for making images. It was believed that images of men and animals could be made of certain substances and at certain times, and could be so treated as to cause good or evil to a patient, by means of magical and planetary influences. See Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. ii. capp. 35-47. The sense is—'He knew well how to choose a fortunate ascendant for treating images, to be used as charms to help the patient.'

420. These are the four elementary qualities, hot, cold, dry, moist; Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 898. Diseases were supposed to be caused by an undue excess of some one quality; and the mixture of prevalent qualities in a man's body determined his complexion or temperament. Thus the sanguine man was thought to be hot and moist; the phlegmatic, cold and moist; the choleric, hot and dry; the melancholy, cold and dry. The whole system rested on the teaching of Galen, and was fundamentally wrong, as it assumed that the 'elements,' or 'simple bodies,' were four, viz. earth, air, fire, and water. Of these, earth was said to be cold and dry; water, cold and moist; air, hot and moist; and fire, hot and dry. They thus correspond to the four complexions, viz. melancholy, phlegmatic, sanguine, and choleric. Each principal part of the body, as the brain, heart, liver, stomach, &c., could be 'distempered,' and such distemperance could be either 'simple' or 'compound.' Thus a simple distemperature of the brain might be 'an excess of heat'; a compound one, 'an excess of heat and moisture.' See the whole system explained in Sir Thos. Elyot's Castel of Helthe; at the beginning.

422. parfit practisour, perfect practitioner.

424. his bote, his remedy; A. S. bōt, a remedy; E. boot.

426. drogges. MS. Harl. dragges; the rest drogges, drugges, drugs. As to dragges (which is quite a different word), the Promptorium Parvulorum has 'dragge, dragetum'; and Cotgrave defines dragée (the French form of the word dragge) as 'a kind of digestive powder prescribed unto weak stomachs after meat, and hence any jonkets, comfits, or sweetmeats served in the last course for stomach-closers.'

letuaries, electuaries. 'Letuaire, laituarie, s. m., électuaire, sorte de médicament, sirop'; Godefroy.

429-34. Read th'oldë. 'The authors mentioned here wrote the chief medical text-books of the middle ages. Rufus was a Greek physician of Ephesus, of the age of Trajan; Haly, Serapion, and Avicen (Ebn Sina) were Arabian physicians and astronomers of the eleventh century; Rhasis was a Spanish Arab of the tenth century; and Averroes (Ebn Roschd) was a Moorish scholar who flourished in Morocco in the twelfth century. Johannes Damascenus was also an Arabian physician, but of a much earlier date (probably of the ninth century). Constanti[n]us Afer, a native of Carthage, and afterwards a monk of Monte Cassino, was one of the founders of the school of Salerno—he lived at the end of the eleventh century. Bernardus Gordonius, professor of medicine at Montpellier, appears to have been Chaucer's contemporary. John Gatisden was a distinguished physician of Oxford in the earlier half of the fourteenth century. Gilbertyn is supposed by Warton to be the celebrated Gilbertus Anglicus. The names of Hippocrates and Galen were, in the middle ages, always (or nearly always) spelt Ypocras and Galienus.'—Wright. Cf. C. 306. Æsculapius, god of medicine, was fabled to be the son of Apollo. Dioscorides was a Greek physician of the second century. See the long note in Warton, 1871, ii. 368; and the account in Saunders' Chaucer (1889), p. 115. I may note here, that Haly wrote a commentary on Galen, and is mentioned in Skelton's Philip Sparowe, l. 505. There were three Serapions; the one here meant was probably John Serapion, in the eleventh century. Averroes wrote a commentary on the works of Aristotle, and died about 1198. Constantinus is the same as 'the cursed monk Dan Constantyn,' mentioned in the Marchaunt's Tale, E. 1810. John Gatisden was a fellow of Merton College, and 'was court-doctor under Edw. II. He wrote a treatise on medicine called Rosa Anglica'; J. Jusserand, Eng. Wayfaring Life, (1889), p. 180. Cf. Book of the Duchess, 572. Dante, Inf. iv. 143, mentions 'Ippocrate, Avicenna, e Gallieno, Averrois,' &c.

See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 393.

439. 'In cloth of a blood-red colour and of a blueish-grey.' Cf. 'robes de pers,' Rom. de la Rose, 9116. In the Testament of Creseide, ed. 1550, st. 36, we find:—

Cf. P. Plowman, B. vi. 271; Hoccleve, de Reg. Princ. p. 26.

440. taffata (or taffety), a sort of thin silk; E. taffeta.

sendal (or cendal), a kind of rich thin silk used for lining, very highly esteemed. Thynne says—'a thynne stuffe lyke sarcenett.' Palsgrave however has 'cendell, thynne lynnen, sendal.' See Piers Plowman, B. vi. 11; Marco Polo, ed. Yule (see the index).

441. esy of dispence, moderate in his expenditure.

442. wan in pestilence, acquired during the pestilence. This is an allusion to the great pestilence of the years 1348, 1349; or to the later pestilences in 1362, 1369, and 1376.

443. For = because, seeing that. It was supposed that aurum potabile was a sovereign remedy in some cases. The actual reference is, probably, to Les Remonstrances de Nature, by Jean de Meun, ll. 979, 980, &c.; 'C'est le fin et bon or potable, L'humide radical notable; C'est souveraine medecine'; and the author goes on to refer us to Ecclus. xxxviii. 4—'The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them.' Hence the Doctor would not abhor gold. And further—'C'est medecine cordiale'; ib. 1029. To return to aurum potabile: I may observe that it is mentioned in the play called Humour out of Breath, Act i. sc. 1; and there is a footnote to the effect that this was the 'Universal Medicine of the alchemists, prepared from gold, mercury, &c. The full receipt will be found in the Fifth and last Part of the Last Testament of Friar Basilius Valentinus, London, 1670, pp. 371-7.' See also Thomson's Hist. of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 164; Burton's Anat. of Melancholy, pt. 2. sec. 4. mem. 1. subsec. 4.

The Wyf of Bathe.

445. of bisyde, &c., from (a place) near Bath, i. e. from a place in its suburbs; for elsewhere she is simply called the Wyf of Bathe.

446. 'But she was somewhat deaf, and that was her misfortune.' We should now say—'and it was a pity.'

447. clooth-making. 'The West of England, and especially the neighbourhood of Bath, from which the "good wif" came, was celebrated, till a comparatively recent period, as the district of cloth-making. Ypres and Ghent were the great clothing-marts on the Continent.'—Wright. 'Edward the third brought clothing first into this Island, transporting some families of artificers from Gaunt hither.'—Burton's Anat. of Mel. p. 51. 'Cloth of Gaunt' is mentioned in the Romaunt of the Rose, l. 574 (vol. i. p. 117).

haunt, use, practice; i. e. she was so well skilled (in it).

448. passed, i. e. surpassed.

450. to the offring. In the description of the missal-rites, Rock shews how the bishop (or officiating priest) 'took from the people's selves their offerings of bread and wine.... The men first and then the women, came with their cake and cruse of wine.' So that, instead of money being collected, as now, the people went up in order with their offerings; and questions of precedence of course arose. The Wife insisted on going up first among the women. See Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 2. 33, 149.

453. coverchief (keverchef, or kerchere, kerché). The kerchief, or covering for the head, was, until the fourteenth century, almost an indispensable portion of female attire. See B. 837; Leg. of Good Women, l. 2202.

ful fyne of ground, of a very fine texture. See Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, l. 230, which means 'it was of fine enough texture to take dye in grain.'

454. ten pound. Of course this is a playful exaggeration; but Tyrwhitt was not justified in altering ten pound into a pound; for a pound-weight, in a head-dress of that period, was a mere nothing, as will be readily understood by observing the huge structures represented in Fairholt's Costume, figs. 125, 129, 130, 151, which were often further weighted with ornaments of gold. Skelton goes so far as to describe Elinour Rummyng (l. 72)—

Cf. Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, l. 84, and the note; Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, 1585, pp. 63, 70, 72; or ed. Furnivall, pp. 69, 74, 76.

457. streite y-teyd, tightly fastened. See note to l. 174.

moiste, soft—not 'as hard as old boots.' So, in H. 60, moysty ale is new ale.

460. chirche-dore. The priest married the couple at the church-porch, and immediately afterwards proceeded to the altar to celebrate mass, at which the newly-married persons communicated. As Todd remarks—'The custom was, that the parties did not enter the church till that part of the office, where the minister now goes up to the altar [or rather, is directed to go up], and repeats the psalm.' See Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet. 1871, ii. 366, note 1; Anglia, vi. 106; Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. pt. 2. 172; Brand's Antiquities, ed. Ellis, ii. 134. And see D. 6.

461. Withouten = besides. other companye, other lovers. This expression (copied from Le Rom. de la Rose, l. 12985—'autre companie') makes it quite certain that the character of the Wife of Bath is copied, in some respects, from that of La Vieille in the Roman de la Rose, as further appears in the Wife's Prologue.

462. as nouthe, as now, i. e. at present. The form nouthe is not uncommon; it occurs in P. Plowman, Allit. Poems, Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight, &c. A. S. nū ðā, now then.

465. Boloigne. Cf. 'I will have you swear by our dear Lady of Boulogne'; Gammer Gurton's Needle, Act 2, sc. 2. An image of the virgin, at Boulogne, was sought by pilgrims. See Heylin's Survey of France, p. 163, ed. 1656 (quoted in the above, ed. Hazlitt).

466. In Galice (Galicia), at the shrine of St. James of Compostella, a famous resort of pilgrims in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As the legend goes, the body of St. James the Apostle was supposed to have been carried in a ship without a rudder to Galicia, and preserved at Compostella. See Piers Plowman, A. iv. 106, 110, and note to B. Prol. 47; also Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, pp. 172, 177.

Coloigne. At Cologne, where the bones of the Three Kings or Wise Men of the East, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, are said to be preserved. See Coryat's Crudities; Chambers, Book of Days, ii. 751.

467. 'She knew much about travelling.'

468. Gat-tothed = gat-toothed, meaning gap-toothed, having teeth wide apart or separated from one another. A gat is an opening, and is allied to E. gate. The Friesic gat, Dan., Du., and Icel. gat, and Norweg. gat, all mean a hole, or a gap. Very similar is the use of the Shropshire glat, a gap in a hedge, also a gap in the mouth caused by loss of teeth. Example: 'Dick, yo' bin a flirt; I thought yo' wun (were) gwein to marry the cook at the paas'n's. Aye, but 'er'd gotten too many glats i' the mouth for me'; Miss Jackson's Shropshire Wordbook. 'Famine—the gap-toothed elf'; Golding's Ovid, b. 8; leaf 105. It occurs again, D. 603. [Gat-toothed has also been explained as goat-toothed, lascivious, but the word goat appears as goot in Chaucer.] Perhaps the following piece of 'folk-lore' will help us out. 'A young lady the other day, in reply to an observation of mine—"What a lucky girl you are!"—replied; "So they used to say I should be when at school." "Why?" "Because my teeth were set so far apart; it was a sure sign I should be lucky and travel."'—Notes & Queries 1 Ser. vi. 601; cf. the same, 7 Ser. vii. 306. The last quotation shews that the stop after weye at the end of l. 467 should be a mere semicolon; since ll. 467 and 468 are closely connected.

469. amblere, an ambling horse.

470. Y-wimpled, covered with a wimple; see l. 151.

471. targe, target, shield.

472. foot-mantel. Tyrwhitt supposes this to be a sort of riding-petticoat, such as is now used by market-women. It is clearly shewn, as a blue outer skirt, in the drawing in the Ellesmere MS. At a later time it was called a safe-guard (see Nares), and its use was to keep the gown clean. It may be added that, in the Ellesmere MS., the Wife is represented as riding astride. Hence she wanted 'a pair of spurs.'

474. carpe, prate, discourse; Icel. karpa, to brag. The present sense of carp seems to be due to Lat. carpere.

475. remedyes. An allusion to the title and subject of Ovid's book, Remedia Amoris.

476. the olde daunce, the old game, or custom. The phrase is borrowed from Le Roman de la Rose, l. 3946—'Qu'el scet toute la vielle dance'; E. version, l. 4300—'For she knew al the olde daunce.' It occurs again; Troil. iii. 695. And in Troil. ii. 1106, we have the phrase loves daunce. Cf. the amorouse daunce, Troil. iv. 1431.

The Persoun.

478. Persoun of a toun, the parson or parish priest. Chaucer, in his description of the parson, contrasts the piety and industry of the secular clergy with the wickedness and laziness of the religious orders or monks. See Dryden's 'Character of a Good Parson,' and Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village'; also Wyclif, ed. Matthew, p. 179.

482. parisshens, parishioners; in which -er is a later suffix.

485. y-preved, proved (to be). ofte sythes, often-times; from A. S. sīð, a time.

486. 'He was very loath to excommunicate those who failed to pay the tithes that were due to him.' 'Refusal to pay tithes was punishable with the lesser excommunication'; Bell. Wyclif complains of 'weiward curatis' that 'sclaundren here parischenys many weies by ensaumple of pride, enuye, coueitise and vnresonable vengaunce, so cruely cursynge for tithes'; Works, ed. Matthew, p. 144 (cf. p. 132).

487. yeven, give; A. S. gifan. out of doute, without doubt.

489. offring, the voluntary contributions of his parishioners.

substaunce, income derived from his benefice.

490. suffisaunce, a sufficiency; enough to live on.

492. lafte not, left not, ceased not; from M. E. leven.

493. meschief, mishap, misfortune.

494. ferreste, farthest; superl. of fer, far. muche, great. lyte, small; A. S. lyt, small, little.

497. wroghte, wrought, worked; pt. t. of werchen, to work.

498. The allusion is to Matt. v. 19, as shewn by a parallel passage in P. Plowman, C. xvi. 127.

502. lewed, unlearned, ignorant. Lewed or lewd originally signified the people, laity, as opposed to the clergy; the modern sense of the word is not common in Middle English. Cf. mod. E. lewd, in Acts xvii. 5. See Lewd in Trench, Select Glossary.

503-4. if a preest tak-e keep, if a priest may (i. e. will) but pay heed to it. St. John Chrysostom also saith, 'It is a great shame for priests, when laymen be found faithfuller and more righteous than they.'—Becon's Invective against Swearing, p. 336.

507. to hyre. The parson did not leave his parish duties to be performed by a stranger, that he might have leisure to seek a chantry in St. Paul's. See Piers Plowman, B-text, Prol. l. 83; Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, ed. Wright, pp. 51, 52; Spenser, Shep. Kalendar (May).

508. And leet, and left (not). We should now say—'Nor left.' So also, in l. 509, And ran = Nor ran. Leet is the pt. t. of leten, to let alone, let go.

509. Here again, së-ynt is used as if it were dissyllabic; see ll. 120, 697.

510. chaunterie, chantry; an endowment for the payment of a priest to sing mass, agreeably to the appointment of the founder. 'There were thirty-five of these chantries established at St. Paul's, which were served by fifty-four priests; Dugd. Hist. pref. p. 41.'—Tyrwhitt's Glossary. On the difference between a gild and a chantry, see the instructive remarks in Eng. Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, pp. 205-207, 259.

511. 'Or to be kept (i. e. remain) in retirement along with some fraternity.' I do not see how with-holde can mean 'maintained,' as it is usually explained. Cf. dwelte in l. 512, and with-holde in G. 345.

514. no mercenarie, no hireling; see John x. 12, where the Vulgate version has mercenarius.

516. despitous, full of despite, or contempt; cf. E. spite.

517. daungerous, not affable, difficult to approach. Cf. Rom. of the Rose, l. 591:—'Ne of hir answer daungerous'; where the original has desdaigneuse. digne, full of dignity; hence, repellent. 'She was as digne as water in a dich,' A. 3964; because stagnant water keeps people at a distance.

519. fairnesse, i. e. by leading a fair or good life. The Harleian MS. has clennesse, that is, a life of purity.

523. snibben, reprimand; cf. Dan. snibbe, to rebuke, scold; mod. E. snub. In Wyclif's translation of Matt, xviii. 15, the earlier version has snybbe as a synonym for reprove.

nones; see l. 379, and the note.

525. wayted after, looked for. See line 571.

526. spyced conscience; so also in D. 435. Spiced here seems to signify, says Tyrwhitt, nice, scrupulous; for a reason which is given below. It occurs in the Mad Lover, act iii. sc. 1, by Beaumont and Fletcher. When Cleanthe offers a purse, the priestess says—

'Under pretence of spiced holinesse.'—Tract dated 1594, ap. Todd's Illustrations of Gower, p. 380.

The origin of the phrase is French. The name of espices (spices) was given to the fees or dues which were payable (in advance) to judges. A 'spiced' judge, who would have a 'spiced' conscience, was scrupulous and exact, because he had been prepaid, and was inaccessible to any but large bribes. See Cotgrave, s. v. espices; Littré, s. v. épice; and, in particular, Les Œuvres de Guillaume Coquillart, ed. P. Tarbé, t. i. p. 31, and t. ii. p. 114. (First explained by me in a letter to The Athenaeum, Nov. 26, 1892, p. 741.)

527. 'But the teaching of Christ and his twelve apostles, that taught he.'

528. Cf. Acts, i. 1; Gower, Conf. Amant. ii. 188.

The Plowman.

529. Plowman; not a hind or farm-labourer, but a poor farmer, who himself held the plough; cf. note to P. Plowman, C. viii. 182. was, who was.

530. y-lad, carried, lit. led. Cf. prov. E. lead, to cart (corn).

531. swinker, toiler, workman; see l. 186. Cf. swink, toil, in l. 540.

534. though him gamed or smerte, though it was pleasant or unpleasant to him.

536. dyke, make ditches, delve, dig; A. S. delfan. Chaucer may be referring to P. Plowman, B. v. 552, 553.

541. mere. People of quality would not ride upon a mare.

The Miller.

545. carl, fellow; Icel. karl, cognate with A. S. ceorl, a churl. See A. 3469; also A. 1423-4. This description of the Miller should be compared with that in A. 3925-3940.

547. 'That well proved (to be true); for everywhere, where he came.'

548. the ram. This was the usual prize at wrestling-matches. Tyrwhitt says—'Matthew Paris mentions a wrestling match at Westminster, A. D. 1222, at which a ram was the prize.' Cf. Sir Topas, B. 1931; Tale of Gamelyn, 172, 280.

549. a thikke knarre, a thickly knotted (fellow), i. e. a muscular fellow. Cf. M. E. knor, Mid. Du. knorre, a knot in wood; and E. gnarled. It is worth notice that, in ll. 549-557, there is no word of French origin, except tuft.

550. of harre, off its hinges, lit. hinge. 'I horle at the notes, and heve hem al of herre'; Poem on Singing, in Reliq. Antiquae, ii. 292. Gower has out of herre, off its hinges, out of use, out of joint; Conf. Amant. bk. ii. ed. Pauli, i. 259; bk. iii. i. 318. Skelton has:—'All is out of harre,' Magnificence, l. 921. From A.S. heorr, a hinge.

553. Todd cites from Lilly's Midas—'How, sir, will you be trimmed? Will you have a beard like a spade or a bodkin?'—Illust. of Gower, p. 258.

554. cop, top; A. S. copp, a top; cf. G. Kopf.

557. nose-thirles, lit. nose-holes; mod. E. nostrils.

559. forneys. 'Why, asks Mr. Earle, should Chaucer so readily fall on the simile of a furnace? What, in the uses of the time, made it come so ready to hand? The weald of Kent was then, like our "black country" now, a great smelting district, its wood answering to our coal; and Chaucer was Knight of the Shire, or M.P. for Kent.'—Temporary Preface to the Six-text edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, p. 99.

560. Ianglere, loud talker.

goliardeys, a ribald jester, one who gained his living by following rich men's tables, and telling tales and making sport for the guests. Tyrwhitt says, 'This jovial sect seems to have been so called from Golias, the real or assumed name of a man of wit, towards the end of the twelfth century, who wrote the Apocalypsis Goliæ, and other pieces in burlesque Latin rhymes, some which have been falsely [?] attributed to Walter Map.' But it would appear that Golias is the sole invention of Walter Map, the probable author of the 'Golias' poems. See Morley's Eng. Writers, 1888, iii. 167, where we read that the Apocalypse of Golias and the confession of Golias 'have by constant tradition been ascribed to him [Walter Map]; never to any other writer.' Golias is a medieval spelling of the Goliath of scripture, and occurs in Chaucer, Man of Lawes Tale, B. 934. In several authors of the thirteenth century, quoted by Du Cange, the goliardi are classed with the joculatores et buffones, and it is very likely that the word goliardus was, originally, quite independent of Golias, which was only connected with it by way of jest. The word goliardus seems rather to have meant, originally, 'glutton,' and to be connected with gula, the throat; but it was quite a common term, in the thirteenth century, for certain men of some education but of bad repute, who composed or recited satirical parodies and coarse verses and epigrams for the amusement of the rich. See T. Wright's Introduction to the poems of Walter Map (Camden Soc.); P. Plowman, ed. Skeat, note to B. prol. 139; Wright's History of Caricature, ch. X; and the account in Godefroy's O. French Dict., s. v. Goliard.

561. that, i. e. his 'Iangling,' his noisy talk.

harlotrye means scurrility; Wyclif (Eph. v. 4) so translates Lat. scurrilitas.

562. 'Besides the usual payment in money for grinding corn, millers are always allowed what is called "toll," amounting to 4 lbs. out of every sack of flour.'—Bell. But it can hardly be doubted that, in old times, the toll was wholly in corn, not in money at all. It amounted, in fact, to the twentieth or twenty-fourth part of the corn ground, according to the strength of the water-course; see Strutt, Manners and Customs, ii. 82, and Nares, s. v. Toll-dish. At Berwick, the miller's share was reckoned as 'the thirteenth part for grain, and the twenty-fourth part for malt.' Eng. Gilds, p. 342. When the miller 'tolled thrice,' he took thrice the legal allowance. Cf. A. 3939, 3940.

563. a thombe of gold. An explanation of this proverb is given on the authority of Mr. Constable, the Royal Academician, by Mr. Yarrell in his History of British Fishes, who, when speaking of the Bullhead or Miller's Thumb, explains that a miller's thumb acquires a peculiar shape by continually feeling samples of corn whilst it is being ground; and that such a thumb is called golden, with reference to the profit that is the reward of the experienced miller's skill.

Ray's Proverbs give us—'An honest miller has a golden thumb'; ed. 1768, p. 136; taken satirically, this means that there are no honest millers. Brand, in his Pop. Antiquities, ed. Ellis, iii. 387, quotes from an old play—'Oh the mooter dish, the miller's Thumbe!'

The simplest explanation is to take the words just as they stand, i. e. 'he used to steal corn, and take his toll thrice; yet he had a golden thumb such as all honest millers are said to have.'

565. W. Thorpe, when examined by Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1407, complains of the pilgrims, saying—'they will ordain to have with them both men and women that can well sing wanton songs; and some other pilgrims will have with them bagpipes; so that every town that they come through, what with the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the barking out of dogs after them, they make more noise than if the king came there away, with all his clarions and many other minstrels.'—Arber's Eng. Garner, vi. 84; Wordsworth, Eccl. Biography, 4th ed. i. 312; Cutts, Scenes and Characters, p. 179.

566. 'And with its music he conducted us out of London.'

The Maunciple.

567. Maunciple or manciple, an officer who had the care of purchasing provisions for a college, an inn of court, &c. (Still in use.) See A. 3993. A temple is here 'an inn of court'; besides the Inner and Middle Temple (in London), there was also an Outer Temple; see Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 461; and the account of the Temple in Stow's Survey of London.

568. which, whom.

achatours, purchasers; cf. F. acheter, to buy.

570. took by taille, took by tally, took on credit. Cf. Piers Plowman, ed. Wright, vol. i. p. 68, and ed. Skeat (Clarendon Press Series), B. iv. 58:—

The buyer who took by tally had the price scored on a pair of sticks; the seller gave him one of them, and retained the other himself. 'Lordis ... taken pore mennus goodis and paien not therfore but white stickis ... and sumtyme beten hem whanne thei axen here peye'; Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, p. 233 (see note at p. 519).

571. Algate, in every way, always; cf. prov. E. gate, a street.

achat, buying; see l. 568.

572. ay biforn, ever before (others).

574. swich, such; A. S. swylce. lewed, unlearned; as in l. 502. pace, pass, i. e. surpass.

575. heep, heap, i. e. crowd; like G. Haufe.

581. 'To make him live upon his own income.'

582. 'Unless he were mad.' See l. 184.

583. 'Or live as economically as it pleases him to wish to do.'

584. al a, a whole. Cf. 'all a summer's day'; Milton, P. L. i. 449.

586. hir aller cappe, the caps of them all. Hir aller = eorum omnium. 'To sette' a man's 'cappe' is to overreach him, to cheat him, or to befool him. Cf. A. 3143.

The Reve.

587. Reve. See Prof. Thorold Rogers' capital sketch of Robert Oldman, the Cuxham bailiff, a serf of the manor (as reeves always were), in his Agriculture and Prices in England, i. 506-510.

592. Y-lyk, like. y-sen-e, visible; see note to l. 134.

593. 'He knew well how to keep a garner and a bin.'

597. neet, neat, cattle. dayerye, dairy.

598. hors, horses; pl. See note to l. 74. pultrye, poultry.

599. hoolly, wholly; from A. S. hāl, whole.

601. Sin, short for sithen; and sithen, with an added suffix, became sithen-s or sithen-ce, mod. E. since.

602. 'No one could prove him to be in arrears.'

603. herde, herd, i. e. cow-herd or shep-herd. hyne, hind, farm-labourer.

604. That ... his, whose; as in A. 2710.

covyne, deceit; lit. a deceitful agreement between two parties to prejudice a third. O. F. covine, a project; from O. F. covenir, Lat. conuenire, to come together, agree.

605. adrad, afraid; from the pp. of A. S. ofdrǣdan, to terrify greatly.

the deeth, the pestilence; see note to l. 442.

606. woning, dwelling-place; see l. 388.

609. astored (Elles. &c.); istored (Harl.); furnished with stores.

611. lene, lend; whence E. len-d. of, some of.

613. mister, trade, craft; O. F. mestier (F. métier), business; Lat. ministerium. 'Men of all mysteris'; Barbour's Bruce, xvii. 542.

614. wel, very. wrighte, wright, workman.

615. stot, probably what we should now call a cob. Prof. J. E. T. Rogers, in his Hist. of Agriculture, i. 36, supposes that a stot was a low-bred undersized stallion. It frequently occurs with the sense of 'bullock'; see note to P. Plowman, C. xxii. 267.

616. Sir Topas's horse was 'dappel-gray,' which has the same sense as pomely gray, viz. gray dappled with round apple-like spots. 'Apon a cowrsowre poumle-gray'; Wyntown, Chron. iv. 217; 'pomly-gray'; Palladius on Husbandry, bk. iv. l. 809; 'Upon a pomely palfray'; Lybeaus Disconus, 844 (in Ritson's Metrical Romances). Florio gives Ital. pomellato, 'pide, daple-graie.' The word occurs in the French Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, ed. Joly, 10722:—'Quant Troylus orent monté Sor un cheval sor pommelé.' Cf. G. 559.

Scot. 'The name given to the horse of the reeve (who lived at Bawdeswell, in Norfolk) is a curious instance of Chaucer's accuracy; for to this day there is scarcely a farm in Norfolk or Suffolk, in which one of the horses is not called Scot'; Bell's Chaucer. Cf. G. 1543.

617. pers. Some MSS. read blew. See note on l. 439.

621. Tukked aboute, with his long coat tucked up round him by help of a girdle. In the pictures in the Ellesmere MS., both the reeve and the friar have girdles, and rather long coats; cf. D. 1737. 'He (i. e. a friar) wore a graie cote well tucked under his corded girdle, with a paire of trime white hose'; W. Bullein, A Dialogue against the Feuer (E. E. T. S.), p. 68. See Tuck in Skeat, Etym. Dict.

622. hind-r-este, hindermost; a curious form, combining both the comparative and superlative suffixes. Cf. ov-er-est, l. 290.

The Somnour.

623. Somnour, summoner; an officer employed to summon delinquents to appear in ecclesiastical courts; now called an apparitor. 'The ecclesiastical courts ... determined all causes matrimonial and testamentary.... They had besides to enforce the payment of tithes and church dues, and were charged with disciplinary power for punishment of adultery, fornication, perjury, and other vices which did not come under the common law. The reputation of the summoner is enough to show how abuses pervaded the action of these courts. Prof. Stubbs has summed up the case concerning them in his Constitutional History, iii. 373.'—Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, note at p. 514. For further information as to the summoner's character, see the Frere's Tale, D. 1299-1374.

624. cherubinnes face. H. Stephens, Apologie for Herodotus, i. c. 30, quotes the same thought from a French epigram—'Nos grands docteurs au cherubin visage.'—T. Observe that cherubin (put for cherubim) is a plural form. 'As the pl. was popularly much better known than the singular (e. g. in the Te Deum), the Romanic forms were all fashioned on cherubin, viz. Ital. cherubino, Span. querubin, Port. querubin, cherubin, F. cherubin'; New English Dictionary. Cherubs were generally painted red, a fact which became proverbial, as here. Cotgrave has: 'Rouge comme un cherubin, red-faced, cherubin-faced, having a fierie facies like a Cherubin.' Mrs. Jameson, in her Sacred and Legendary Art, has unluckily made the cherubim blue, and the seraphim red; the contrary was the accepted rule.

625. sawcefleem or sawsfleem, having a red pimpled face; lit. afflicted with pimples, &c., supposed to be caused by too much salt phlegm (salsum phlegma) in the constitution. The four humours of the blood, and the four consequent temperaments, are constantly referred to in various ways by early writers—by Chaucer as much as by any. Tyrwhitt quotes from an O. French book on physic (in MS. Bodley 761)—'Oignement magistrel pur sausefleme et pur chescune manere de roigne,' where roigne signifies any scorbutic eruption. 'So (he adds) in the Thousand Notable Things, B. i. 70—"A sawsfleame or red pimpled face is helped with this medicine following:"—two of the ingredients are quicksilver and brimstone. In another place, B. ii. 20, oyle of tartar is said "to take away cleane all spots, freckles, and filthy wheales."' He also quotes, in his Glossary, from MS. Bodley 2463—'unguentum contra salsum flegma, scabiem, &c.' Flewme in the Prompt. Parv. answers to Lat. phlegma. See the long note by J. Addis in N. and Q. 4 S. iv. 64; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 169, l. 777. 'The Greke word that he vsed was ἐξανθήματα, that is, little pimples or pushes, soche as, of cholere and salse flegme, budden out in the noses and faces of many persones, and are called the Saphires and Rubies of the Tauerne.'—Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, Diogenes, § 6: [printed false flegme in ed. 1877.] See l. 420.

627. scalled, having the scall or scab, scabby, scurfy. blake, black.

piled, deprived of hair, thin, slight. Cf. E. peel, vb. Palsgrave has—'Pylled, as one that wanteth heare'; and 'Pylled, scal[l]ed.'

629. litarge, litharge, a name given to white lead.

630. Boras, borax.

ceruce, ceruse, a cosmetic made from white lead; see New E. Dict. oille of tartre, cream of tartar; potassium bitartrate.

632. Cf. 'Such whelkes [on the head] haue small hoales, out of the which matter commeth.... And this euill commeth of vicious and gleymie [viscous] humour, which commeth to the skin of their head, and breedeth therein pimples and whelks.'—Batman on Bartholomè, lib. 7. c. 3. In the same, lib. 7. c. 67, we read that 'A sauce flume face is a priuye signe of leprosie.' Cf. Shak. Hen. V. iii. 6. 108.

635. See Prov. xxiii. 31. The drinking of strong wine accounts for the Somnour's appearance. 'Wyne ... makith the uisage salce fleumed [misprinted falce flemed], rede, and fulle of white whelkes'; Knight de la Tour, p. 116 (perhaps copied from Chaucer).

643. Can clepen Watte, i. e. can call Walter (Wat) by his name; just as parrots are taught to say 'Poll.' In Political Songs, ed. Wright, p. 328, an ignorant priest is likened to a jay in a cage, to which is added: 'Go[o]d Engelish he speketh, ac [but] he wot nevere what'; referring to the time when Anglo-French was the mother-tongue of many who became priests.

644. 'But if any one could test him in any other point.'

646. Questio quid iuris. 'This kind of question occurs frequently in Ralph de Hengham. After having stated a case, he adds, quid juris, and then proceeds to give an answer to it.'—T. It means—'the question is, what law (is there)?' i. e. what is the law on this point?

647. harlot, fellow, usually one of low conduct; but originally merely a young person, without implication of reproach. See D. 1754.

649. 'For a bribe of a quart of wine, he would allow a boon companion of his to lead a vicious life for a whole year, and entirely excuse him; moreover (on the other hand) he knew very well how to pluck a finch,' i. e. how to get all the feathers off any inexperienced person whom it was worth his while to cheat. Cf. 'a pulled hen' in l. 177. With reference to the treatment of the poor by usurers, &c., we read in the Rom. of the Rose, l. 6820, that 'Withoute scalding they hem pulle,' i. e. pluck them. And see Troil. i. 210.

654-7. 'He would teach his friend in such a case (i. e. if his friend led an evil life) to stand in no awe of the archdeacon's curse (excommunication), unless he supposed that his soul resided in his purse; for in his purse [not in his soul] he should be punished' (i. e. by paying a good round sum he could release himself from the archdeacon's curse). 'Your purse (said he) is the hell to which the archdeacon really refers when he threatens you.' See, particularly, Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, pp. 35, 62, 496.

661. assoilling, absolution; from the vb. assoil.

662. war him of, i. e. let him beware of; war is the pres. subj.

significavit, i. e. of a writ de excommunicato capiendo [or excommunication] which usually began, 'Significavit nobis venerabilis frater,' &c.—T. See Significavit in Cowel or Blount.

663. In daunger, within his jurisdiction, within the reach or control of his office; the true sense of M. E. daunger is 'control' or 'dominion.' Thus, in the Romaunt of the Rose, l. 1470, we find:—

i. e. whom Love had got into his power. So also in l. 1049 of the same.

664. yonge girles, young people, of either sex. In the Coventry Mysteries, p. 181, there is mention of 'knave gerlys,' i. e. male children. And see gerles in the Gloss, to P. Plowman, and the note to the same, C. ii. 29.

665. and was al hir reed, and was wholly their adviser.

666, 667. gerland. A garland for an ale-stake was distinct from a bush. The latter was made of ivy-leaves; and every tavern had an ivy-bush hanging in front as its sign; hence the phrase, 'Good wine needs no bush,' &c. But the garland, often used in addition to the bush, was made of three equal hoops, at right angles to each other, and decorated with ribands. It was also called a hoop. The sompnour wore only a single hoop or circlet, adorned with large flowers (apparently roses), according to his picture in the Ellesmere MS. Emelye, in the Knightes Tale, is described as gathering white and red flowers to make 'a sotil gerland' for her head; A. 1054. 'Garlands of flowers were often worn on festivals, especially in ecclesiastical processions'; Rock, Church of our Fathers, ii. 72. Some garlands, worn on the head, were made of metal; see Riley, Memorials of London, p. 133.

667. ale-stake, a support for a garland in front of an ale-house. For a picture of an ale-stake with a garland, see Hotten's Book of Signboards. The position of it was such that it did not stand upright, but projected horizontally from the side of a tavern at some height from the ground, as shewn in Larwood and Hotten's Book of Signboards. Hence the enactments made, that it should never extend above the roadway for more than seven feet; see Liber Albus, ed. H. T. Riley, 1861, pp. 292, 389. Speght wrongly explained ale-stake as 'a Maypole,' and has misled many others, including Chatterton, who thus was led to write the absurd line—'Around the ale-stake minstrels sing the song'; Ælla, st. 30. 'At the ale-stake' is correct; see C. 321.

The Pardoner.

669. As to the character of the Pardoner, see further in the Pardoner's Prologue, C. 329-462; P. Plowman, B. prol. 68-82; Heywood's Interlude of the Four Ps, which includes a shameless plagiarism from Chaucer's Pardoner's Prologue; and Sir David Lyndesay's Satire of the Three Estaits, l. 2037. Cf. note to C. 349. See also the Essay on Chaucer's Pardoner and the Pope's Pardoners, by Dr. J. Jusserand, in the Essays on Chaucer (Chaucer Society), p. 423; and the Chapter on Pardoners in Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life. Jusserand shews that Chaucer has not in the least exaggerated; for exaggeration was not possible.

670. Of Rouncival. Of course the Pardoner was an Englishman, so that he could hardly belong to Roncevaux, in Navarre. The reference is clearly to the hospital of the Blessed Mary of Rouncyvalle, in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields, at Charing (London), mentioned in Dugdale's Monasticon, ii. 443. Stow gives its date of foundation as the 15th year of Edward IV., but this was only a revival of it, after it had been suppressed by Henry V. It was a 'cell' to the Priory of Roncevaux in Navarre. See Todd's Illustrations of Gower, p. 263: and Rouncival in Nares. Cf. note to l. 172.

672. Com hider, love, to me. 'This, I suppose, was the beginning or the burthen of some known song.'—Tyrwhitt. It is quoted again in l. 763 of the poem called 'The Pearl,' in the form—'Come hyder to me, my lemman swete.' hider, hither.

The rime of tó me with Róme should be particularly noted, as it enables even the reader who is least skilled in English phonology to perceive that Ro-me was really dissyllabic, and that the final e in such words was really pronounced. Similarly, in Octouian Imperator, ed. Weber, l. 1887, we find seint Ja-mè, riming with frá me (from me). Perhaps the most amusing example of editorial incompetence is seen in the frequent occurrence of the mysterious word byme in Pauli's edition of Gower; as, e.g. in bk. iii. vol. i. p. 370:—