1632. 'Never entertain monks any more.'

1637. See the description of the Prioress in the Prologue, A. 118.

The Prioresses Tale.

For general remarks upon this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 421.

1643. Cf. Ps. viii. 1-2. The Vulgate version has—'Domine Dominus noster, quam admirabile est nomen tuum in uniuersa terra! Quoniam eleuata est magnificentia tua super caelos! Ex ore infantium et lactentium perfecisti laudem,' &c.

1650. can or may, know how to, or have ability to do.

1651. The 'white lily' was the token of Mary's perpetual virginity. See this explained at length in Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 245.

1655. 'For she herself is honour, and, next after her Son, the root of bounty, and the help (or profit) of souls.'

1658. Cf. Chaucer's A.B.C, or Hymn to the Virgin, (Minor Poems, vol. i. p. 266), where we find under the heading M—

So also in st. 2 of an Alliterative Hymn in Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 284.

1659. 'That, through thy humility, didst draw down from the Deity the Spirit that alighted in thee.'

1660. thalighte = thee alighte, the two words being run into one. Such agglutination is more common when the def. art. occurs, or with the word to; cf. Texpounden in B. 1716.

1661. lighte may mean either (1) cheered, lightened; or (2) illuminated. Tyrwhitt and Richardson both take the latter view; but the following passage, in which hertes occurs, makes the former the more probable:—

1664. Partly imitated from Dante, Paradiso, xxxiii. 16:—

1668. goost biforn, goest before, dost anticipate. of, by. The eighth stanza of the Seconde Nonnes Tale (G. 50-56) closely resembles ll. 1664-70; being imitated from the same passage in Dante.

1677. Gydeth, guide ye. The plural number is used, as a token of respect, in addressing superiors. By a careful analysis of the words thou and ye in the Romance of William of Palerne, I deduced the following results, which are generally true in Mid. English. 'Thou is the language of a lord to a servant, of an equal to an equal, and expresses also companionship, love, permission, defiance, scorn, threatening: whilst ye is the language of a servant to a lord, and of compliment, and further expresses honour, submission, or entreaty. Thou is used with singular verbs, and the possessive pronoun thine; but ye requires plural verbs, and the possessive your.'—Pref. to Will. of Palerne, ed. Skeat, p. xlii. Cf. Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, sect. 231.

1678. Asie, Asia; probably used, as Tyrwhitt suggests, in the sense of Asia Minor, as in the Acts of the Apostles.

1679. a Iewerye, a Jewry, i. e. a Jews' quarter. In many towns there was formerly a Jews' quarter, distinguished by a special name. There is still an Old Jewry in London. In John vii. 1 the word is used as equivalent to Judea, as also in other passages in the Bible and in Shakesp. Rich. II, ii. 1. 55. Chaucer (House of Fame, 1435) says of Josephus—

Thackeray uses the word with an odd effect in his Ballad of 'The White Squall.' See also note to B. 1749.

1681. vilanye. So the six MSS.; Hl. has felonye, wrongly. In the margin of the Ellesmere MS. is written 'turpe lucrum,' i. e. vile gain, which is evidently the sense intended by lucre of vilanye, here put for villanous lucre or filthy lucre, by poetical freedom of diction. See Chaucer's use of vilanye in the Prologue, A. 70 and A. 726.

1684. free, unobstructed. People could ride and walk through, there being no barriers against horses, and no termination in a cul de sac. Cf. Troilus, ii. 616-8.

1687. Children an heep, a heap or great number of children. Of is omitted before children as it is before quad yere in B. 1628. For heep, see Prologue, A. 575.

1689. maner doctrine, kind of learning, i. e. reading and singing, as explained below. Here again of is omitted, as is usual in M.E. after the word maner; as—'In another maner name,' Rob. of Glouc. vol. i. p. 147; 'with somme manere crafte,' P. Plowman, B. v. 25: 'no maner wight,' Ch. Prol. A. 71; &c. See Mätzner, Englische Grammatik, ii. 2. 313. men used, people used; equivalent to was used. Note this use of men in the same sense as the French on, or German man. This is an excellent instance, as the poet does not refer to men at all, but to children. Moreover, men (spelt me in note to B. 1702) is an attenuated form of the sing. man, and not the usual plural.

1693. clergeon, not 'a young clerk' merely, as Tyrwhitt says, but a happily chosen word implying that he was a chorister as well. Ducange gives—'Clergonus, junior clericus, vel puer choralis; jeune clerc, petit clerc ou enfant de chœur'; see Migne's edition. And Cotgrave has—'Clergeon, a singing man, or Quirester in a Queer [choir].' It means therefore 'a chorister-boy.' Cf. Span. clerizon, a chorister, singing-boy; see New E. Dict.

1694. That, as for whom. A London street-boy would say—'which he was used to go to school.' That ... his = whose.

1695. wher-as, where that, where. So in Shakespeare, 2 Hen. VI. i. 2. 58; Spenser, F. Q. i. 4. 38. See Abbott's Shakesp. Grammar, sect. 135. thimage, the image; alluding to an image of the Virgin placed by the wayside, as is so commonly seen on the continent.

1698. Ave Marie; so in Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 35. The words were—'Aue Maria, gratia plena; Dominus tecum; benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus uentris tui. Amen.' See the English version in Specimens of Early English, ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 106. It was made up from Luke i. 28 and i. 42. Sometimes the word Jesus was added after tui, and, at a later period, an additional clause—'Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.' See Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 315; and iii. pt. 2, 134.

1702. 'For a good child will always learn quickly.' This was a proverbial expression, and may be found in the Proverbs of Hending, st. 9:—

1704. stant, stands, is. Tyrwhitt says—'we have an account of the very early piety of this Saint in his lesson; Breviarium Romanum, vi. Decemb.—Cuius uiri sanctitas quanta futura esset, iam ab incunabulis apparuit. Nam infans, cum reliquas dies lac nutricis frequens sugeret, quarta et sexta feria (i. e. on Wednesdays and Fridays) semel duntaxat, idque uesperi, sugebat.' Besides, St. Nicholas was the patron of schoolboys, and the festival of the 'boy-bishop' was often held on his day (Dec. 6); Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 2. 215.

1708. Alma redemptoris mater. There is more than one hymn with this beginning, but the one meant is perhaps one of five stanzas printed in Hymni Latini Medii Ævi, ed. F. J. Mone, vol. ii. p. 200, from a St. Gallen MS. no. 452, p. 141, of the thirteenth century. The first and last stanzas were sung in the Marian Antiphon, from the Saturday evening before the 1st Sunday in Advent to Candlemas day. In l. 4 we have the salutation which Chaucer mentions (l. 1723), and in the last stanza is the prayer (l. 1724). These two stanzas are as follows:—

There is another anthem that would suit almost equally well, but hardly comes so near to Chaucer's description. It occurs in the Roman Breviary, ed. 1583, p. 112, and was said at compline from Advent eve to Candlemas day, like the other; cf. l. 1730. The words are:—

In the Myrour of Our Lady, ed. Blunt, p. 174, an English translation of the latter anthem is given, with the heading 'Alma redemptoris mater.'

1709. antiphoner, anthem-book. 'The Antiphoner, or Lyggar, was always a large codex, having in it not merely the words, but the music and the tones, for all the invitatories, the hymns, responses, versicles, collects, and little chapters, besides whatever else belonged to the solemn chanting of masses and lauds, as well as the smaller canonical hours'; Rock, Church of our Fathers, v. 3, pt. 2, p. 212.

1710. ner and ner, nearer and nearer. The phrase come neor and neor (= come nearer and nearer) occurs in King Alisaunder, in Weber's Metrical Romances, l. 599.

1713. was to seye, was to mean, meant. To seye is the gerundial or dative infinitive; see Morris, Hist. Outlines of English Accidence, sect. 290.

1716. Texpounden, to expound. So also tallege = to allege, Kn. Ta., A. 3000 (Harl. MS.); tespye = to espy, Nonne Pr. Ta., B. 4478. See note to l. 1733.

1726. can but smal, know but little. Cf. 'the compiler is smal learned'; Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, i. 10.—M. Cf. coude = knew, in l. 1735.

1733. To honoure; this must be read tonóure, like texpounden in l. 1716.

1739. To scholeward; cf. From Bordeaux ward in the Prologue, A. 397.—M.

1749. The feeling against Jews seems to have been very bitter, and there are numerous illustrations of this. In Gower's Conf. Amant. bk. vii, ed. Pauli, iii. 194, a Jew is represented as saying—

In Piers the Plowman, B. xviii. 104, Faith reproves the Jews, and says to them—

See also P. Pl., C. v. 194. Usury was forbidden by the canon law, and those who practised it, chiefly Jews and Lombards, were held to be grievous sinners. Hence the character of Shylock, and of Marlowe's Jew of Malta. Cf. note on the Jews in England in the Annals of England, p. 162.

1751. honest, honourable; as in the Bible, Rom. xii. 17, &c.

1752. swich, such. The sense here bears out the formation of the word from so-like.—M.

1753. your, of you. Shakespeare has 'in your despite,' Cymb. i. 6. 135; 'in thy despite,' 1 Hen. VI, iv. 7. 22. Despite is used, like the Early and Middle English maugre, with a genitive; as maugre þin, in spite of thee, in Havelok, ll. 1128, 1789.—M.

1754. 'Which is against the respect due to your law.' Cf. 'spretaeque iniuria formae'; Æneid, i. 27.

1762. Wardrobe, privy. Godefroy's O. F. Dict. shews that garderobe meant not only a wardrobe, or place for keeping robes, &c., but also any small chamber; hence the sense. See Cotgrave.

1764. 'O accursed folk (composed) of Herods wholly new.'

1766. 'Murder will out'; a proverb; see B. 4242.

1769. Souded to, confirmed in. From O. F. souder, Lat. solidare, whence E. solder. Wyclif's later version has—'hise leggis and hise feet weren sowdid togidere'; Acts, iii. 7. The reference in ll. 1770-5 is to Rev. xiv. 3, 4.

1793. Iesu. This word is written 'Ihu' in E. Hn. Cm.; and 'ihc' in Cp. Pt. Ln.; in both cases there is a stroke through the h. This is frequently printed Ihesu, but the retention of h is unnecessary. It is not really an h at all, but the Greek Η, meaning long e (ē). So, also, in 'ihc,' the c is not the Latin c, but the Gk. C, meaning Σ or s; and ihc are the first three letters of the word ΙΗΣΟΥΣ = ιησους = iesus. Iesu, as well as Iesus, was used as a nominative, though really the genitive or vocative case. At a later period, ihs (still with a stroke through the h) was written for ihc as a contraction of iesus. By an odd error, a new meaning was invented for these letters, and common belief treated them as the initials of three Latin words, viz. Iesus Hominum Salvator. But as the stroke through the h or mark of contraction still remained unaccounted for, it was turned into a cross! Hence the common symbol I.H.S. with the small cross in the upper part of the middle letter. The wrong interpretation is still the favourite one, all errors being long-lived. Another common contraction is Xpc., where all the letters are Greek. The x is ch (χ), the p is r (ρ), and c is s, so that Xpc = chrs, the contraction for christus or Christ. This is less common in decoration, and no false interpretation has been found for it.

1794. inwith, within. This form occurs in E. Hn. Pt. Ln.; the rest have within. Again, in the Merchant's Tale (E. 1944), MSS. E. Hn. Cm. Hl. have the form inwith. It occurs in the legend of St. Katharine, ed. Morton, l. 172; in Sir Perceval (Thornton Romances), l. 611; in Alliterative Poems, ed. Morris, A. 970; and in Palladius on Husbandry, ed. Lodge, iii. 404. Dr. Morris says it was (like utwith = without) originally peculiar to the Northern dialect. See the Glossary, and the note to l. 2159 below (p. 202).

1805. coomen; so in E. Hn.; comen in Pt. Cp. But it is the past tense = came. The spelling comen for the past tense plural is very common in Early English, and we even find com in the singular. Thus, in l. 1807, the Petworth MS. has 'He come,' equivalent to 'coom,' the o being long. But herieth in l. 1808 is a present tense.

1814. nexte, nighest, as in Kn. Ta. A. 1413. So also hext = highest, as in the Old Eng. proverb—'When bale is hext, then bote is next,' i. e. 'when woe is highest, help is nighest.' Next is for neh-est, and hext is for heh-est.

1817. newe Rachel, second Rachel, as we should now say; referring to Matt. ii. 18.

1819. dooth for to sterve, causes to die. So also in l. 1823, dide hem drawe = caused them to be drawn.

1822. Evidently a proverb; compare Boeth. bk. iv. pr. 1. 37-40 (vol. ii. p. 93); and note to P. Plowman, C. v. 140.

1826. The body occupied the place of honour. 'The bier, if the deceased had been a clerk, went into the chancel; if a layman, and not of high degree, the bearers set it down in the nave, hard by the church-door'; Rock, Ch. of our Fathers, ii. 472. He cites the Sarum Manual, fol. c.

1827. the abbot; pronounced thabbòt. covent, convent; here used for the monks who composed the body over which the abbot presided. So in Shakespeare, Hen. VIII, iv. 2. 18—'where the reverend abbot, With all his covent, honourably received him.' The form covent is Old French, still preserved in Covent Garden.

1835. halse; two MSS. consulted by Tyrwhitt read conjure, a mere gloss, caught from the line above. Other examples of halse in the sense of conjure occur. 'Ich halsi þe o godes nome' = I conjure thee in God's name; St. Marherete, ed. Cockayne, p. 17. Again, in Joseph of Arimathie, ed. Skeat, l. 400—

which closely resembles the present passage.

1838. to my seminge, i. e. as it appears to me.

1840. 'And, in the ordinary course of nature.'

1843. Wil, wills, desires. So in Matt. ix. 13, I will have mercy = I require mercy; Gk. ἔλεον θέλω; Vulgate, misericordiam uolo. Cf. B. 45.

1848. In the Ellesmere MS. (which has the metrical pauses marked) the pause in this line is marked after lyf. The word sholde is dissyllabic here, having more than the usual emphasis; it has the force of ought to. Cf. E. 1146.

1852. In the Cursor Mundi, 1373-6, Seth is told to place three pippins under the root of Adam's tongue.

1857. now is used in the sense of take notice that, without any reference to time. There is no necessity to alter the reading to than, as proposed by Tyrwhitt. See Mätzner, Engl. Gram. ii. 2. 346, who refers to Luke ii. 41, John i. 44, and quotes an apt passage from Maundeville's Travels, p. 63—'Now aftre that men han visited the holy places, thanne will they turnen toward Jerusalem.' In A. S. the word used in similar cases is sōþlīce = soothly, verily.

1873. Ther, where. leve, grant. No two words have been more confused by editors than lene and leue. Though sometimes written much alike in MSS., they are easily distinguished by a little care. The A. S. lȳfan or lēfan, spelt lefe in the Ormulum (vol. i. p. 308), answers to the Germ. erlauben, and means grant or permit, but it can only be used in certain cases. The verb lene, A. S. lǣnan, now spelt lend, often means to give or grant in Early English, but again only in certain cases. I quote from my article on these words in Notes and Queries, 4 Ser. ii. 127—'It really makes all the difference whether we are speaking of to grant a thing to a person, or to grant that a thing may happen. "God lene thee grace," means "God grant thee grace," where to grant is to impart; but "God leue we may do right" means "God grant we may do right," where to grant is to permit.... Briefly, lene requires an accusative case after it, leue is followed by a dependent clause.' Lene occurs in Chaucer, Prol. A. 611, Milleres Tale, A. 3777, and elsewhere. Examples of leue in Chaucer are (1) in the present passage, misprinted lene by Tyrwhitt, Morris, Wright, and Bell, though five of our MSS. have leue; (2) in the Freres Tale, D. 1644, printed lene by Tyrwhitt (l. 7226), leene by Morris, leeve by Wright and Bell; (3) (4) (5) in three passages in Troilus and Criseyde (ii. 1212, iii. 56, v. 1750), where Tyrwhitt prints leve, but unluckily recants his opinion in his Glossary, whilst Morris prints lene. For other examples see Stratmann, s. v. lænan and leven.

It may be remarked that leve in Old English has several other senses; such as (1) to believe; (2) to live; (3) to leave; (4) to remain; (5) leave, sb.; (6) dear, adj. I give an example in which the first, sixth, and third of these senses occur in one and the same line:—

1874. Hugh of Lincoln. The story of Hugh of Lincoln, a boy supposed to have been murdered at Lincoln by the Jews, is placed by Matthew Paris under the year 1255. Thynne, in his Animadversions upon Speght's editions of Chaucer (p. 45 of the reprint of the E.E.T.S.), addresses Speght as follows—'You saye, that in the 29 Henry iii. eightene Jewes were broughte from Lincolne, and hanged for crucyfyinge a childe of eight yeres olde. Whiche facte was in the 39 Hen. iii., so that you mighte verye well haue sayed, that the same childe of eighte yeres olde was the same hughe of Lincolne; of whiche name there were twoe, viz. thys younger Seinte Hughe, and Seinte Hughe bishoppe of Lincolne, which dyed in the yere 1200, long before this little seinte hughe. And to prove that this childe of eighte yeres olde and that yonge hughe of Lincolne were but one; I will sett downe two auctoryties out of Mathewe Paris and Walsinghame, wherof the fyrste wryteth, that in the yere of Christe 1255, being the 39 of Henry the 3, a childe called Hughe was sleyne by the Jewes at Lyncolne, whose lamentable historye he delyvereth at large; and further, in the yere 1256, being 40 Hen. 3, he sayeth, Dimissi sunt quieti 24 Judei á Turri London., qui ibidem infames tenebantur compediti pro crucifixione sancti Hugonis Lincolniae: All which Thomas Walsingham, in Hypodigma Neustriae, confirmeth: sayinge, Ao. 1255, Puer quidam Christianus, nomine Hugo, à Judeis captus, in opprobrium Christiani nominis crudeliter est crucifixus.' There are several ballads in French and English, on the subject of Hugh of Lincoln, which were collected by M. F. Michel, and published at Paris in 1834, with the title—'Hugues de Lincoln, Recueil de Ballades Anglo-Normandes et Ecossoises relatives au Meurtre de cet Enfant.' The day of St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, is Aug. 27; that of St. Hugh, boy and martyr, is June 29. See also Brand's Pop. Antiq. ed. Ellis, i. 431. And see vol. iii. p. 423.

1875. With, by. See numerous examples in Mätzner, Engl. Gram. ii. 1. 419, amongst which we may especially notice—'Stolne is he with Iues'; Towneley Mysteries, p. 290.

Prologue to Sir Thopas.

1881. miracle, pronounced míracl'. Tyrwhitt omits al, and turns the word into mirácle, unnecessarily.

1883. hoste is so often an evident dissyllable (see l. 1897), that there is no need to insert to after it, as in Tyrwhitt. In fact, bigan is seldom followed by to.

1885. what man artow, what sort of a man art thou?

1886. woldest finde, wouldst like to find. We learn from this passage, says Tyrwhitt, that Chaucer 'was used to look much upon the ground; that he was of a corpulent habit; and reserved in his behaviour.' We cannot be quite sure that the poet is serious; but these inferences are probably correct; cf. Lenvoy a Scogan, 31.

1889. war you, mind yourselves, i. e. make way.

1890. as wel as I; said ironically. Chaucer is as corpulent as the host himself. See note to l. 1886 above.

1891. were, would be. tenbrace, to embrace. In the Romaunt of the Rose, true lovers are said to be always lean; but deceivers are often fat enough:—

1893. elvish, elf-like, akin to the fairies; alluding to his absent looks and reserved manner. See Elvish in the Glossary, and cf. 'this elvish nyce lore'; Can. Yeom. Tale, G. 842. Palsgrave has—'I waxe eluysshe, nat easye to be dealed with, Ie deuiens mal traictable.'

1900. Ye, yea. The difference in Old English between ye and yis (yes) is commonly well marked. Ye is the weaker form, and merely assents to what the last speaker says; but yis is an affirmative of great force, often followed by an oath, or else it answers a question containing a negative particle, as in the House of Fame, 864. Cf. B. 4006 below.

The Tale of Sir Thopas.

In the black-letter editions, this Tale is called 'The ryme of Sir Thopas,' a title copied by Tyrwhitt, but not found in the seven best MSS. This word is now almost universally misspelt rhyme, owing to confusion with the Greek rhythm; but this misspelling is never found in old MSS. or in early printed books, nor has any example yet been found earlier than the reign of Elizabeth. The old spelling rime is confirmed by the A. S. rīm, Icel. rím, Dan. rim, Swed. rim, Germ. reim, Dutch rijm, Old Fr. rime, &c. Confusion with rime, hoarfrost, is impossible, as the context always decides which is meant; but it is worth notice that it is the latter word which has the better title to an h, as the A. S. word for hoarfrost is hrīm. Tyrwhitt, in his edition of Chaucer, attempted two reforms in spelling, viz. rime for rhyme, and coud for could. Both are most rational, but probably unattainable.

Thopas. In the Supplement to Ducange we find—'Thopasius, pro Topasius, Acta S. Wencesl. tom. 7. Sept. p. 806, col. 1.' The Lat. topazius is our topaz. The whole poem is a burlesque (see vol. iii. p. 423), and Sir Topaz is an excellent title for such a gem of a knight. The name Topyas occurs in Richard Coer de Lion, ed. Weber, ii. 11, as that of a sister of King Richard I; but no such name is known to history.

The metre is that commonly used before and in Chaucer's time by long-winded ballad-makers. Examples of it occur in the Romances of Sir Percevall, Sir Isumbras, Sir Eglamour, and Sir Degrevant (in the Thornton Romances, ed. Halliwell), and in several romances in the Percy Folio MS. (ed. Hales and Furnivall), such as Libius Disconius, Sir Triamour, Sir Eglamour, Guy and Colbrande, The Grene Knight, &c.; see also Amis and Amiloun, and Sir Amadas in Weber's Metrical Romances; and Lybeaus Disconus, The King of Tars, Le Bone Florence, Emare, The Erle of Tolous, and Horn Childe in Ritson's collection. To point out Chaucer's sly imitations of phrases, &c. would be a long task; the reader would gain the best idea of his manner by reading any one of these old ballads. To give a few illustrations is all that can be attempted here; I refer the reader to Prof. Kölbing's elaborate article in the Englische Studien, xi. 495, for further information; also to the dissertation by C. J. Bennewitz mentioned in vol. iii. p. 424. It is remarkable that we find in Weber a ballad called 'The Hunting of the Hare,' which is a pure burlesque, like Chaucer's, but a little broader in tone and more obviously comic.

1902. Listeth, lordes, hearken, sirs. This is the usual style of beginning. For example, Sir Bevis begins—

and Sir Degaré begins—

Warton well remarks—'This address to the lordings, requesting their silence and attention, is a manifest indication that these ancient pieces were originally sung to the harp, or recited before grand assemblies, upon solemn occasions'; Obs. on F. Queene, p. 248.

1904. solas, mirth. See Prol. l. 798. 'This word is often used in describing the festivities of elder days. "She and her ladyes called for their minstrells, and solaced themselves with the disports of dauncing"; Leland, Collectanea, v. 352. So in the Romance of Ywaine and Gawin:—

1905. gent, gentle, gallant. Often applied to ladies, in the sense of pretty. The first stanzas in Sir Isumbras and Sir Eglamour are much in the same strain as this stanza.

1910. Popering. 'Poppering, or Poppeling, was the name of a parish in the Marches of Calais. Our famous antiquary Leland was once rector of it. See Tanner, Bib. Brit. in v. Leland.'—Tyrwhitt. Here Calais means the district, not the town. Poperinge has a population of about 10,500, and is situate about 26 miles S. by W. from Ostend, in the province of Belgium called West Flanders, very near the French 'marches,' or border. Ypres (see A. 448) is close beside it. place, the mansion or chief house in the town. Dr. Pegge, in his Kentish Glossary, (Eng. Dial. Soc.), has—'Place, that is, the manor-house. Hearne, in his pref. to Antiq. of Glastonbury, p. xv, speaks of a manour-place.' He refers also to Strype's Annals, cap. xv.

1915. payndemayn. 'The very finest and the whitest [kind of bread] that was known, was simnel-bread, which ... was as commonly known under the name of pain-demayn (afterwards corrupted into [painmain or] payman); a word which has given considerable trouble to Tyrwhitt and other commentators on Chaucer, but which means no more than "bread of our Lord," from the figure of our Saviour, or the Virgin Mary, impressed upon each round flat loaf, as is still the usage in Belgium with respect to certain rich cakes much admired there'; Chambers, Book of Days, i. 119. The Liber Albus (ed. Riley, p. 305) speaks of 'demesne bread, known as demeine,' which Mr. Riley annotates by—'Panis Dominicus. Simnels made of the very finest flour were thus called, from an impression upon them of the effigy of our Saviour.' Tyrwhitt refers to the poem of the Freiris of Berwick, in the Maitland MS., in which occur the expressions breid of mane and mane breid. It occurs also in Sir Degrevant (Thornton Romances, p. 235):—

'Paynemayn prevayly Sche brouȝth fram the pantry,' &c.

It is mentioned as a delicacy by Gower, Conf. Amantis, bk. vi. (ed. Pauli, iii. 22).

1917. rode, complexion. scarlet in grayn, i. e. scarlet dyed in grain, or of a fast colour. Properly, to dye in grain meant to dye with grain, i. e. with cochineal. In fact, Chaucer uses the phrase 'with greyn' in the epilogue to the Nonne Prestes Tale; B. 4649. See the long note in Marsh's Lectures on the English Language, ed. Smith, pp. 54-62, and the additional note on p. 64. Cf. Shak. Tw. Nt. i. 5. 255.

1920. saffroun; i. e. of a yellow colour. Cf. Bottom's description of beards—'I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawney beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow'; Mids. Nt. Dr. i. 2. In Lybeaus Disconus (ed. Ritson, Met. Rom. ii. 6, or ed. Kaluza, l. 139) a dwarf's beard is described as 'yelow as ony wax.'

1924. ciclatoun, a costly material. From the O. Fr. ciclaton, the name of a costly cloth. [It was early confused with the Latin cyclas, which Ducange explains by 'vestis species, et panni genus.' The word cyclas occurs in Juvenal (Sat. vi. 259), and is explained to mean a robe worn most often by women, and adorned with a border of gold or purple; see also Propertius, iv. 7. 40.] Ciclatoun, however, is of Eastern origin, as was well suggested in the following note by Col. Yule in his edition of Marco Polo, i. 249:—

'The term suklát is applied in the Punjab trade-returns to broadcloth. Does not this point to the real nature of the siclatoun of the Middle Ages? It is, indeed, often spoken of as used for banners, which implies that it was not a heavy woollen. But it was also a material for ladies' robes, for quilts, leggings, housings, pavilions. Michel does not decide what it was, only that it was generally red and wrought with gold. Dozy renders it "silk stuff brocaded with gold," but this seems conjectural. Dr. Rock says it was a thin glossy silken stuff, often with a woof of gold thread, and seems to derive it from the Arabic sakl, "polishing" (a sword), which is improbable.' Compare the following examples, shewing its use for tents, banners, &c.:—

Richardson's Pers. and Arab. Dict. (ed. Johnson, 1829), p. 837, gives: 'Pers. saqlatūn, scarlet cloth (whence Arab. siqlāt, a fine painted or figured cloth)'; and the derivation is probably (as given in the New E. Dict.) from the very Pers. word which has given us the word scarlet; so that it was originally named from its colour. It was afterwards applied to various kinds of costly materials, which were sometimes embroidered with gold. See Ciclaton in Godefroy, and in the New E. Dict.; and Scarlet in my Etym. Dictionary.

The matter has been much confused by a mistaken notion of Spenser's. Not observing that Sir Thopas is here described in his robes of peace, not in those of war (as in a later stanza), he followed Thynne's spelling, viz. chekelatoun, and imagined this to mean 'that kind of guilded leather with which they [the Irish] use to embroder theyr Irish jackes'; View of the State of Ireland, in Globe edition, p. 639, col. 2. And this notion he carried out still more boldly in the lines—

1925. Jane, a small coin. The word is known to be a corruption of Genoa, which is spelt Jeane in Hall's Chronicles, fol. xxiv. So too we find Janueys and Januayes for Genoese. See Bardsley's English Surnames, s. v. Janeway. Stow, in his Survey of London, ed. 1599, p. 97, says that some foreigners lived in Minchin Lane, who had come from Genoa, and were commonly called galley-men, who landed wines, &c. from the galleys at a place called 'galley-key' in Thames Street. 'They had a certaine coyne of silver amongst themselves, which were half-pence of Genoa, and were called galley half-pence. These half-pence were forbidden in the 13th year of Henry IV, and again by parliament in the 3rd of Henry V, by the name of half-pence of Genoa.... Notwithstanding, in my youth, I have seen them passe currant,' &c. Chaucer uses the word again in the Clerkes Tale (E. 999), and Spenser adopted it from Chaucer; F. Q. iii. 7. 58. Mr. Wright observes that 'the siclaton was a rich cloth or silk brought from the East, and is therefore appropriately mentioned as bought with Genoese coin.'

1927. for rivéer, towards the river. This appears to be the best reading, and we must take for in close connexion with ryde; perhaps it is a mere imitation of the French en riviere. It alludes to the common practice of seeking the river-side, because the best sport, in hawking, was with herons and waterfowl. Tyrwhitt quotes from Froissart, v. 1. c. 140—'Le Comte de Flandres estoit tousjours en riviere—un jour advint qu'il alla voller en la riviere—et getta son fauconnier un faucon apres le heron.' And again, in c. 210, he says that Edward III 'alloit, chacun jour, ou en chace on en riviere,' &c. So we read of Sir Eglamour:—

Of Ipomydon's education we learn that his tutor taught him to sing, to read, to serve in hall, to carve the meat, and

See also the Squire of Low Degree, in Ritson, vol. iii. p. 177.

1931. ram, the usual prize at a wrestling match. Cf. Gk. τραγῳδία.

stonde, i. e. be placed in the sight of the competitors; be seen. Cf. Prol. A. 548, and the Tale of Gamelyn, 172. Tyrwhitt says—'Matthew Paris mentions a wrestling-match at Westminster, A.D. 1222, in which a ram was the prize, p. 265.' Cf. also—

1933. paramour, longingly; a common expression; see the Glossary.

1937. hepe, mod. E. 'hip,' the fruit of the dog-rose; A. S. hēope.

1938. Compare—'So hyt be-felle upon a day'; Erle of Tolous, Ritson's Met. Rom. iii. 134. Of course it is a common phrase in these romances.

1941. worth, lit. became; worth upon = became upon, got upon. It is a common phrase; compare—

1942. launcegay, a sort of lance. Gower has the word, Conf. Amant. bk. viii. (ed. Pauli, iii. 369). Cowel says its use was prohibited by the statute of 7 Rich. II, cap. 13. Camden mentions it in his Remaines, p. 209. Tyrwhitt quotes, from Rot. Parl. 29 Hen. VI, n. 8, the following—'And the said Evan then and there with a launcegaye smote the said William Tresham throughe the body a foote and more, wherof he died.' Sir Walter Raleigh (quoted by Richardson) says—'These carried a kind of lance de gay, sharp at both ends, which they held in the midst of the staff.' But this is certainly a corrupt form. It is no doubt a corruption of lancezagay, from the Spanish azagaya, a word of Moorish origin. Cotgrave gives—'Zagaye, a fashion of slender, long, and long-headed pike, used by the Moorish horsemen.' It seems originally to have been rather a short weapon, a kind of half-pike or dart. The Spanish word is well discussed in Dozy, Glossaire des mots Espagnols et Portugais dérivés de l'Arabe, 2nd ed. p. 225. The Spanish azagaya is for az-zagaya, where az is for the definite article al, and zagaya is a Berber or Algerian word, not given in the Arabic dictionaries. It is found in Old Spanish of the fourteenth century. Dozy quotes from a writer who explains it as a Moorish half-pike, and also gives the following passage from Laugier de Tassy, Hist. du royaume d'Alger, p. 58—'Leurs armes sont l'azagaye, qui est une espéce de lance courte, qu'ils portent toujours à la main.' The Caffre word assagai, in the sense of javelin, was simply borrowed from the Portuguese azagaia.

1949. a sory care, a grievous misfortune. Chaucer does not say what this was, but a passage in Amis and Amiloun (ed. Weber, ii. 410) makes it probable that Sir Thopas nearly killed his horse, which would have been grievous indeed; see l. 1965 below. The passage I allude to is as follows:—

Readers of Scott will remember Fitz-James's lament over his 'gallant grey.'

1950. This can hardly be other than a burlesque upon the Squire of Low Degree (ed. Ritson, iii. 146), where a long list of trees is followed up, as here, by a list of singing-birds. Compare also the Romaunt of the Rose, l. 1367:—