Piers Ploughman (Wright)/Notes







Line 1. Bale, quoting the first two lines, translates them In æstivo tempore, cum sol caleret. The printers of the early editions altered softe to set.

4, 5. shroudes ... sheep. The other text of this poem reads Yshop into shrobbis | as y shepherde were. See the Introduction.

28. The text represented in Whitaker's edition here differs much from the other. Our dreamer is there introduced very unadvisedly telling us of this tower, 'truthe was therynne,' a piece of information which he only learns afterwards from dame 'Holy Churche:'

Where there is an evident reference to the "tour on a toft," which has been previously mentioned in the more correct text.

43, 44. Dr. Whitaker, misunderstanding this passage, has printed 'ther' for 'that,' which is in all the MSS. In his gloss, he interprets 'wonnen' by 'to dwell;' and he paraphrases the sentence, 'some destroying themselves by gluttony and excess,' translating it, I suppose, "And there dwell wasters whom gluttony destroyeth." The meaning is, the ploughmen worked hard, "and obtained (wan) that which wasters destroy with their gluttony." The writer of the second Trin. Coll. MS. seems to have understood the meaning of the passage, but not the words, and has 'whom that thise wastours.'

68. I have here to preserve the alliteration, adopted 'giltles,' from the second Trin. Coll. MS., and one of the printed editions, in place of 'synneles,' which the other MS. has. Though we find instances of irregularity in the sub-letters (or alliterative letters in the first line) in Pierce Plowman, the chief letter is not so often neglected. In Whitaker's text the account of the minstrels is very confused. Here the minstrels get gold by their song without sin, but the japers and janglers are condemned as getting their living by what is afterwards called 'turpiloquium,' when they had ability to get it in an honester way.

88. Roberdes knaves. These are the same class of malefactors who are named Roberdesmen in the Statutes, 5 Ed. III. c. 14. "Et diverses roberies, homicides, et felonies ont esté faitz eintz ces heures par gentz qui sont appellez Roberdesmen, Wastours, et Draghelatche, si est acordé et establi que si homme eit suspecion de mal de nuls tielx, soit-il de jour soit-il de nuyt, que meintenant soient arestus par les conestables des villes." This law was confirmed by 7 Ric. II. c. 5, where the word is again introduced. Whitaker supposes, without any reason, the 'Roberdes knaves' to be Robin Hood's men. The other Trin. Coll. MS. reads Robertis knaves.

93. Seint Jame. St. James of Compostello was a famous resort of pilgrims in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. An amusing song on the inconveniences which attended the voyage is printed in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 2.

107. Walsyngham. The shrine of the Virgin Mary at Walsingham in Norfolk, also enjoyed an extraordinary celebrity, as a resort of English pilgrims. It appears that the first complaints of the Wicliffite reformers were strongly expressed against this pilgrimage. "Lolardi sequaces Johannis Wiclif ... prædicaverunt peregrinationes non debere fieri, et præcipue apud Walsingham," etc. Th. Walsingh. p. 340.

116. The four orders of friars were, of course, the Franciscans, Augustines, Dominicans, and Carmelites.

131. These four lines stand thus in Whitaker's text, Bote holy churche and charité | choppe a-doun swich shryvers, | the moste myschif of molde | mounteth up faste. Whitaker has translated it quite wrong, "May true charity and church discipline knock down these, the greatest pests on earth, who are rapidly increasing!" The simple meaning of the passage, as given by Whitaker, is, "Unless holy church and charity chop down such shrivers (confessors), the greatest mischief of the world is increasing fast." The present text affords a better and equally clear meaning, "Unless holy church and they hold better together, the greatest mischief in the world is increasing, or gaining ground very fast."

141. of falshede of fastynge, the comma has slipped in by accident. The meaning is "of breaking fast-days."

147. He bunchith hem, MS. Trin. 2.

168. the pestilence tyme. See further on, the note on l. 2497. The great plague of 1349 and 1350 had carried off so much people, that hands were wanting to cultivate the lands in many parishes, and the distress which followed, with the failure of tithes which naturally accompanied it, drove the parsons to plead poverty as an excuse for going to London and seeking other occupations.

192. Whitaker's text inserts the following passage between this line and the one following:—

225. This is the constitutional principle which was universally acknowledged by our early political writers, and of which some strong declarations will be found in my "Political Songs" (published by the Camden Society). The doctrine of "right divine" was certainly not a prevalent one in the middle ages.

291. This fable appears to be of middle-age formation, for it is not found in any of the ancient collections. It does not occur in the fables of Marie. It is however found in the old collection, in French verse of the fourteenth century, entitled Ysopet; and M. Robert has also printed a Latin metrical version of the story from a MS. of the same century. La Fontaine has given it among his fables. It may be observed that the fable is nowhere so well told as in Piers Ploughman. (See Robert, Fables Inédites, des xii$e$, xiii$e$, et xiv$e$ siècles, i, pp. 98-101.) The readers of Scottish history will remember the application of this fable in 1481, by the earl of Angus (popularly named, from this circumstance, Archibald Bell-the-cat), in the conspiracy against the royal favourites, which forms an excellent illustration of our text.

381. Væ terræ, etc. Ecclesiastes, x, 16. "Væ tibi, terra, cujus rex puer est, et cujus principes mane comedunt."

423. and pointeth the lawe. MS. Trin. 2.

429. after this line the following are inserted in the second MS. of Trin. Coll.

438. Taillours, tanneris, | And tokkeris bothe. MS. Trin. 2.

453. The Cottonian MS. Vespas. B. xvi, from which Price has given a long extract in his edition of Warton, has here "With wyne of Oseye | and wyn of Gascoyne." Whitaker's reading is "Whit wyn of Oseye and of Gascoyne." Price observes, in a note, "good wyne of Gaskyne, and the wyne of Osee [is the reading of MS. Harl. No. 875].—The same hand already noticed has corrected wyn to weyte (wheat) of Gascoyne;—an obvious improvement." I by no means partake in this opinion: wine of Gascony, and not wheat of Gascony, is perpetually alluded to in the literature of France and England from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The reading of the text now printed is evidently the original one, which has been corrupted in the others: the wine more particularly known as Gascon, was a red wine. The writer of "La Desputoison du Vin et de l'Iaue," says of it—

The 'wyn of the Rochel' (vin de la Rochelle) was also a favourite wine.—

The "wyn of Oseye" (vin d'Osaie) was a foreign wine, very rare and dear, and sought up by 'gourmands:' it is mentioned with those of Malvoisia, Rosetta, and Muscadet. (Depping Réglemens sur les Arts et Métiers de Paris, p. lxiii.) It is unnecessary to explain what was 'wyn of the Ryn' (Rhine).

456. of the Reule | and of the Rochel. Whitaker.

458. These two lines, omitted in the MS. from which our text is printed, have been added from MS. Trin. 2.

489. fyve wittes. The five wits were equivalent to the five senses. One of the characters in the early interlude of The Four Elements, a production of the earlier part of the sixteenth century, says:—

Stephen Hawes, in his Pastime of Pleasure (chap. xxiv), belonging to this same age, refines upon this notion, and talks of five "internall wittes," answering to the five external wits, or to those which were commonly understood by that name.

522. Genesis xix, 32. It is very singular that this story of Lot and his daughters was the favourite example of the medieval preachers against drunkenness.

563. Luke xx, 25.

595. on an eller. It was the prevailing belief during the middle ages, that the tree on which Judas hanged himself was an elder. Maundevile tells us that this tree was still in existence, when he visited Jerusalem. "Also streghte from Natatorie Siloe is an ymage of ston and of olde auncyen werk, that Absalon leet make; and because thereof, men clepen it the hond of Absalon. And faste by is yit the tree of eldre that Judas henge himself upon for despeyr that he hadde, whan he solde and betrayed oure Lord." The same notion continued to exist in the age of Shakespeare, and is alluded to by Shakespeare himself, Ben Jonson, and others.

681. Lucifer with legions. The story of Lucifer's rebellion and fall was extremely popular in the middle ages, and particularly among the Anglo-Saxons, who, in the fine poem ascribed to Cædmon, had given it almost as much detail as Milton had done at a later date. This legend is related in prose in an Anglo-Saxon tract in MS. Cotton. Vespas. D. xiv, fol. 2.

682. The second Trin. Col. MS. has, Leride it in hevene, | and as the lovelokest | to loke on, aftir oure Lord.

697-704. Instead of these lines, we find the following in Whitaker's text:

Whitaker has translated the last four lines of the foregoing extract thus, "Excepting that hyndes on the holyday look out for warm places, but knaves (servants) when working hard, are indifferent to cold."

695. Isaiah xiv, 14. The citation varies a little from the text of the printed vulgate.

707. Somme in the eyr. The monks in the middle ages endeavoured to explain the existence of different classes of spirits and fairies, which the popular creed represented as harmless, or even beneficent creatures, by supposing that some of the angels who fell with Lucifer were less guilty than others, and were allowed to occupy the different elements on the earth instead of being condemned to "the pit." In "The Master of Oxford's Catechism," written early in the fifteenth century, and printed in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 231, we have the following question and answer,—"C. Where be the anjelles that God put out of heven, and bycam devilles? M. Som into hell, and som reyned in the skye, and som in the erth, and som in waters and in wodys."

815. Mark iv, 24. In qua mensura mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis, et adjicietur vobis.

835. Epist. Jac. ii, 17. Sic et fides, si non habeat opera, mortua est in semetipsa.

862. Luke vi, 38.

901. The second Trin. Col. MS. has—

934. Matth. vii, 17. bonus (for bona) is the reading of the MS. Perhaps it was thought allowable to use the masculine thus before a fem. noun beginning with a, for the sake of euphony, as the French still write mon amie, instead of ma amie, and the like. Whitaker's text has here—

The lines which follow differ considerably in the two texts.

958. Psalm xiv, 1.

991-994. Instead of these lines, the following are substituted in the second Trin. Coll. MS.:—

And the rest, as far as line 1100, differs very much in the two MSS.

1103. of Banneburies sokne, | Reynald the reve, | and the redyngkynges menye, | Munde the mylnere. Whit.

1128. Luke x, 7.

1177. With floryns ynowe. Edward III had issued, not very long before the date of this poem, the first extensive English gold coinage, to which he gave the Italian name of florins, derived originally from that of the city of Florence.

1204. to Westmynstre: i. e. to the courts of law which were held there.

1404. A moton of golde. A mutton (mouton) was a small French coin of gold, which bore the stamp of a lamb or sheep. See Ducange, v. Multo.

1501. Matth. vi, 3.

1523. Regrating, or the buying up of provisions and other things to make extravagant profits by retailing them, was one of the great sources of oppression of the poor by the rich in the middle ages, and was a constant subject of popular complaint.

1529. Whitaker's text adds here,—

1548. Job, xv, 34.

1611. Youre fader she felled. An allusion to the deposition and death of Edward II.

1652. Provisors were people who obtained from the pope the reversion of ecclesiastical dignities, and several severe statutes were made against them, one well-known one by Edward III.

1674. Love-daies. See further on, the note on l. 5634.

1735. In Normandie. 1750. To Caleis. Allusions, no doubt, to recent events in the wars of Edward III. See the Introduction.

1769. Caytiflyche thow, Conscience, | Consailedist the kyng leten | In hus enemys honde | Ys heritage of Fraunce. Whit.

1827. Psalm xiv, 1.

1835. Ps. xiv, 2.

1845. Ps. xiv, 5.

1862. Psalm xxv, 10.

1875. Matth. vi, 5.

1885. Regum. The reference is to 1 Sam. xv, which in the old Vulgate was called primus liber regum.

1985, 2019. Isaiah ii, 4.

2043. Prov. xxii, 9. Victoriam et honorem acquiret qui dat munera; animam autem aufert accipientium.

2099. lernest. Whitaker's text has ledest.

2149. Psalm xiii, 3. The quotation which follows is from the same verse.

2171. his sone. The Black Prince, who was a great favourite with the people.

2175-2186. The variation in Whitaker's text deserves notice. This passage there stands as follows:—

2177. How Wrong ayeins his wille. What follows is a true picture of the oppressions to which the peasantry were frequently subjected by the king's purveyors, and by others in power. See the Political Songs, pp. 377, 378; and Hartshorne's Ancient Metrical Tales, pp. 41, 42.

2197. taillé, a tally. See the Political Songs, as above quoted. Whitaker translates this passage, which stands thus in his edition,

by, "and for ten or twelve quarters of it repaid me but a sheep's tail!"

2298. in my stokkes. In my prison. Prisons were usually furnished with stocks, in which, instead of fetters, prisoners were set.

2323. Beneyt. St. Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine order; St. Bernard, of the order of Cistercians; St. Francis, of the Franciscans.

2335. Galis. Compostello in Galicia.

2473. Passus Quintus. In Whitaker's text, this section, which is called Passus Sextus, is prefaced by the following long exordium, intended as a satire against the mendicant friars:—

2497. thise pestilences.—There were three great pestilences in the reign of Edward III, the terrible effects of which were long fresh in people's minds, and they were often taken as points from which to date common events. Two of them had passed at the period when the Visions of Piers Ploughman are believed to have been written, and are the ones here alluded to. Of the first, or great pestilence, which lasted from 31 May, 1348, to 29 Sept. 1349, the contemporary chroniclers give a fearful account. In a register of the Abbey of Gloucester (MS. Cotton. Domit. A. VIII, fol. 124), we have the following entry:—"Anno Domini m$o$.ccc$o$.xlviij$o$. anno vero regni regis Edwardi III, post conquestum xxij$o$. incepit magna pestilentia in Anglia, ita quod vix tertia pars hominum remansit." This pestilence, known as the black plague, ravaged most parts of Europe, and is said to have carried off in general about two-thirds of the people. It was the pestilence which gave rise to the Decameron of Boccaccio. For an interesting account of it, see Michelet's Hist. de France, iii, 342-349. The second pestilence lasted from 15 Aug. 1361, to May 3, 1362, and was much less severe. The third pestilence raged from 2 July to 29 September, 1369.

2500. The south-westrene wynd | on Saterday at even. Tyrwhitt, in his Preface to Chaucer, first pointed out the identity of this wind with the one mentioned by the old chroniclers (Thorn, Decem. Script. col. 2122; Walsingham, p. 178; the continuator of Adam Murimuth, p. 115), as occurring on the evening of Jan. 15, 1362. The fifteenth of January in that year was a Saturday. The following is the account given by Walsingham: "Anno gratiæ millesimo trecentesimo sexagesimo secundo, qui est annus regni regis Edwardi a conquestu tertii tricesimus sextus, tenuit rex natale apud Wyndesor, et quinto decimo die sequente ventus vehemens, nothus auster affricus, tanta vi erupit, quod flatu suo domos altas, ædificia sublimia, turres, et campanilia, arbores, et alia quæque durabilia et fortia violenter prostravit pariter et impegit, in tantum quod residua quæ modo extant, sunt hactenus infirmiora." The continuator of Murimuth is more particular as to the time of the day, and in other respects more exact. "A.D. m. ccc. lxii, xv die Januarii, circa horam vesperarum, ventus vehemens notus australis affricus tanta rabie erupit," etc.

2529. And fecche Felis his wyf | Fro wyuene pyne. MS. Trin. Col. 2.

2547. This was a very old and very common proverb in England. Thus in the Proverbs of Hending (Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 110):—

The proverb is a little varied in another copy of these "Proverbs," p. 194 of the same work. There is a German proverb closely resembling it, "Je lieberes Kind, je schärfere Ruthe."

2551. Prov. xiii, 24.

2569. After this line Whitaker's text has inserted a passage, answering nearly word for word (except in the few first lines) to the passage in our text, ll. 6218-6274.

2573. In the same text, the following lines are here added:—

2586. Matt. xxv, 12.

2594. Whitaker's Passus Sextus ends with this line.

2625. Before Envy's confession, and in the place of Lechery, Whitaker's text introduces the confession of Pride—

The description of Envy, which follows, is shorter in Whitaker's text, and differs much from our text.

2819-2822. The discipline here described seems to have been peculiar to the chapter-house of the monasteries. Matth. Paris, p. 848, has an anecdote which illustrates curiously this passage of Piers Ploughman. In speaking of the turbulent Falcasius de Breuté, who had been warned in a vision to offer himself to suffer penance in the monastery of St. Albans, in the reign of Henry III, he says, "Vestibus igitur spoliatus cum suis militibus, similiter indumentis spoliatis, ferens in manu virgam quam vulgariter baleis appellamus, et confitens culpam suam, ... a singulis fratribus disciplinas nuda carne suscepit."

2846. In the text which Whitaker has printed, the confession of Wrath was followed by that of Luxury or Lechery. It stands as follows in the copy of the same text in MS. Cotton. Vespas. B. xvi. (See l. 8713, of our present text.)

2850. Sire Hervy. Whitaker and Price (in Warton) suppose that there is here a personal allusion, which at the time had become proverbial.

2874. Symme at the Style. Whit.

2881. To Wy and to Wynchestre | I wente to the feyre. Warton (Hist. of Eng. p. ii, 55, edit. 1840) supposes Wy to be Weyhill, in Hampshire, "where a famous fair still subsists." In fact it is one of the greatest fairs in England, lasting ten days. For anecdotes of the celebrity of the great fair at Winchester in former times, and for some interesting observations on fairs in general, see Warton, loc. cit.

2933. The Roode of Bromholm. At the Priory of Bromholm, in Norfolk, there was a celebrated cross, said to be made of fragments of the real cross, and much resorted to by pilgrims. It was brought from Constantinople to England in 1223. The history of this cross, and the miracles said to have been performed by it at Bromholm, are told by Matthew Paris (p. 268). In the MS. Chronicle of Barthol. de Cotton, it is recorded at the date 1223, "Eo tempore Peregrinatio de Bromholm incepit."

2949. Frensshe ... of Northfolk. Norfolk, it would appear by this, was one of the least refined parts of the island.

3030. In this part of the poem, the smaller variations between the present text and Whitaker's are very numerous. After this line, the following passage is inserted:—

3039. Psa. l, 8.

3083. The confessions of the robber and the glutton are reversed in Whitaker's text, and present many variations. The robber's confession is there preceded by the following curious lines:—

3162. Between this line and the next, MS. Trin. Col. 2, inserts Bargoynes and beverechis | Begonne for to arise.

3277, 3278. rymes of Robyn Hood | and Randolf erl of Chestre. This seems to be the earliest mention of the ballads of Robin Hood which can now be found. Ritson was quite mistaken (Robin Hood, Introd. p. xlix) in the supposed mention of him by the prior of Alnwick, the title of the Latin song being modern. The passage of Fordun, in which Robin Hood is spoken of, is probably an interpolation.

I am not sure that Ritson is right in taking the Randolf erl of Chester of Piers Ploughman, to be Ranulf de Blundevile: it is quite as probable that he was the Ranulf of Chester of the days of Stephen, whose turbulent deeds may have been the subject of popular ballads. Warton (H. E. P. ii, 373), quoting the passage of Piers Ploughman with the word erl omitted, conceives it to mean Ralph Higden, and imagines the rymes to be the Chester Mysteries, of which he conjectured that Ralph Higden was the author.

3311. Ite missa est. The concluding sentence of the service of the Mass.

3408. the Rode of Chestre. There was a celebrated cross or rood at Chester, which was long an object of great veneration, and even of pilgrimage, among our Roman Catholic forefathers. "I do not recollect any thing remarkable (says Mr. Pennant, speaking of Chester) on the outside of the walls which has been unnoticed, unless it be the Rood-eye, and the adjacent places."—"The name of this spot is taken from eye, its watery situation, and rood, the cross which stood there, whose base is still to be seen." Pennant's Tour in Wales, edit. 1778, p. 191. According to Gough's Camden, the base was still remaining in 1789.

3410. Roberd the robbere. This name is rather curious in conjunction with the term Roberdesmen mentioned in the note on l. 88. It was no uncommon practice to give punning names in this way to people or classes of people. In a Latin song of the reign of Henry III (Political Songs, p. 49), we have a very curious instance of it, one of the names being, as here, Robert:—

Competentur per Robert, robbur designatur; Robertus excoriat, extorquet, et minatur.— Vir quicunque rabidus consors est Roberto.

Still earlier (12th cent.) a scribe says of one of his brothers, "Secundus dicebatur Robertus, quia a re nomen habuit, spoliator enim diu fuit et prædo." (Polit. Songs, p. 354.)

3419. Dysmas. In middle-age legends, Dismas and Gestas were the names of the two thieves who were crucified with Christ. The former was the one who believed in the Saviour, and received a promise of paradise.

3443. Before this line, Whitaker's text has the following passage:—

3466. qui manet, &c. Epist. Joan. iv, 16.

3477. Epist. Paul, ad Ephes. iv, 8.

3484. Isai. ix, 2.

3496. Matt. ix, 13.

3502. John i, 14.

3520. Psalm xxxv, 8.

3545. Signes of Synay, | and shelles of Galice ... keyes of Rome. It is perhaps hardly necessary to remark that the articles mentioned here were borne by the pilgrim to indicate the particular holy sites which he had visited. The reader will readily call to mind the lines of a modern poet:—

3622. Seint Thomas shryne. St. Thomas of Canterbury. It may not perhaps be generally known that an interesting description of this shrine, when in its glory, is given by Erasmus, Colloq. Peregrinatio Religionis ergo.

3713. eten apples un-rosted. One of the many specimens of the burlesque manner in which scripture was frequently quoted in these times. A very singular passage (but in a tract professedly burlesque) occurs in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 83:—"Peter askud Adam a full greyt dowtfull question, and seyd, 'Adam, Adam, why ete thu the appull unpard?' 'For sothe,' quod he, 'for y had no wardyns fryde.'"

3826. leven, should be lenen.

3890. Luke xiv, 10.

3944, 3948. Psalm lxviii, 29.

3997. the rode of Lukes. The second Trin. Col. MS. has be the rode of Chestre. There was a famous cross at Lucca, but whether a part of the real cross, I have not ascertained. Calvin, in his most able and entertaining Admonitio de Reliquiis, declines undertaking a list of all the places where pieces of the real cross were shown. "Denique si congesta in acervum essent omnia quæ reperiri possent, integrum navis onus efficerent: cum tamen evangelium testificetur ab unico homine ferri potuisse. Quantæ igitur audaciæ fuit, ligneis frustis sic totum implere orbem, quibus ferendis ne trecenti quidem homines sufficiant?" Calvini, Opusc. p. 277. There was also at Lucca one of the impressions of our Saviour's face on the handkerchief of Veronica. The peculiar oath of William Rufus was by the holy face at Lucca.

4027. with hey trolly lolly. MS. Trin. Col. 2.

4154. In the second Trin. Col. MS. the passage stands as follows:—

4194. Thei corven here coppes, | and courtepies made. Whitaker, who translates it, "They carved wooden cups, and made themselves short cloaks." It ought to be, "They cut their copes to make courtpies (a kind of short cloaks) of them."

4242. Paul Epist. ad Galat. vi, 2.

4251. Scimus enim qui dixit, mihi vindicta, et ego retribuam. Paul. ad Heb. x, 30 ; conf. Paul. ad Rom. xii, 19.

4256. Luke xvi, 9.

4272. Propter frigus piger arare noluit. Prov. xx, 4.

4306. Labores manuum tuarum quia manducabis, beatus es et bene tibi erit. Psal. cxxvii, 2.

4336. His mawe is alongid. MS. Trin. Coll. 2.

4336. Whitaker's text inserts here the following passage, which is curious as containing the same word, latchdrawers, that occurs in Edward's statute, quoted before in the note to l. 88:—

4339. Phisik ... hise furred hodes ... his cloke of Calabre. Whitaker cites, in illustration of the dress of the physician, the costume still worn by the Doctors of Medicine in the universities. Chaucer gives the following description of the dress of the "Doctour of Phisike":—

Calabre appears to have been a kind of fur: a document in Rymer, quoted by Ducange, speaks of an indumentum foderatum cum Calabre.

4390. ripe chiries manye. This passage, joined with the mention of cherry-time in l. 2794, shows that cherries were a common fruit in the fourteenth century. "Mr. Gough, in his British Topography, says that cherries were first brought in by the Romans, but were afterwards lost and brought in again in the time of Henry VIII, by Richard Harris, the king's fruiterer; but this is certainly a mistake. When in the New Forest in Hampshire in the summer of 1808, I saw a great many cherry-trees, apparently, of much more considerable age than the time of Henry VIII. The very old trees were universally of the kind called merries." H. E.

4431. Cato, Distich. i, 21:—

4453. so seide Saturne. See the Introduction, p. xii.

4490. Whitaker's text reads after this line:—

4525. sette scolers to scole. It was common in the scholastic ages for scholars to wander about gathering money to support them at the universities. In a poem in MS. Lansdowne, No. 762, the husbandman, complaining of the many burdens he supports in taxes to the court, payments to the church, and charitable contributions of different kinds, enumerates among the latter the alms to scholars:—

4547. Psa. xiv, 5. Qui pecuniam suam non dedit ad usuram, et munera super innocentem non accepit.

4571. Psa. xiv, 1.

4593. Matt. vii, 12. Luke vi, 31.

4618. the clerc of stories. Called, elsewhere, maister of stories. These names were given popularly to Peter Comestor, author of the famous Historia Scolastica, a paraphrase of the Bible history, with abundance of legendary matter added to it. The title given him by the author of Piers Ploughman is not uncommon in English treatises of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 102 (Ed. Halliwell), speaks of Comestor thus:—

4619. Catons techyng. "Cui des videto," is the twenty-third of the "Distichorum Lemmata" of Dionysius Cato.

4621. Instead of ll. 4621-4658, the following long and curious passage is substituted in the text adopted by Mr. Whitaker:—

4645. Luke xix, 23.

4659. Ps. xxxvi, 25. Junior fui, etenim senui: et non vidi justum derelictum, nec semen ejus quærens panem.

4695. Here again, after many verbal variations from our text, Whitaker's text adds the following long passage, which is very curious, and well worthy to be preserved. Whitaker calls it "one of the finest passages in the whole poem."

4708. Matth. xxv, 46. Et ibunt hi in supplicium æternum; justi autem in vitam æternam.

4721. Psal. xxii, 4.

4739. Psal. xli, 4.

4745. Luke xii, 22. Conf. Matth. vi, 25.

4764. "Dixit insipiens in corde suo, non est Deus," is the commencement of Psalms xiii. and lii.

4769. Prov. xxii, 10. Ejice derisorem, et exibit cum eo jurgium, cessabuntque causæ et contumeliæ.

4771. Perkyn, the diminutive of Peter, or Piers. Formerly the diminutives of people's names were constantly used as marks of familiarity or endearment, as Hawkyn or Halkyn for Henry, Tymkyn for Tim or Timothy, Dawkyn for David, Tomkyn for Thomas, &c.

4796. Cato, Distich. ii, 31.

4847. Matth. xvi, 19.

4941. Prov. xxiv, 16. Septies enim cadet justus, et resurget; impii autem corruent in malum.

4963. To falle and to stonde. I by no means agree with Price's interpretation of this phrase, or in his preference of the reading to falle if he stonde. (Note on Warton ii, 67.) The motion of the boat causes the firm man alternately to fall and stand; be he ever so stable, he stumbles now and then, but his strength is shown in his being able to recover himself. Such are the moral slips which even the just man cannot avoid. But if the man in the boat be too weak to arise again and place himself at the helm, his boat and himself will be lost for want of strength and guidance. So it is with the wicked man. The completion of the phrase quoted from Proverbs, as given in the preceding note, shows the justice of this explanation.

5014. if I may lyve and loke. Price (in Warton) first pointed out the identity between this expression and the one so common in Homer: it is "one of those primitive figures which are common to the poetry of every country."

Whitaker's interpretation is nonsense, "If I have space to live and look in the book." Other instances of this phrase occur in ll. 12132, 13268, and 13303 of Piers Ploughman.

5082. 2 Corinth. xi, 19.

5157. of four kynnes thynges. The medieval notion of the manner in which the elements were mixed together in the formation of the human body, here alluded to, appears to partake more of Western legend than of Eastern tradition. In the English verses on Popular Science (given in my "Popular Treatises of Science written during the Middle Ages," p. 138), we have the following curious account of the four things forming the body, and the influence of each:—

And so on with the other elements. This doctrine of the composition of man from the four elements became a very popular one in the sixteenth century, when the poets frequently allude to it, as may be seen in the examples given by Nares (v. ). In the Mirror for Magistrates (King Forrex, page 76), it is said:—

Massinger (Renegado iii, 2) says:—

In Shakespeare (Twel. N. ii, 3), Sir Toby Belch inquires, "Does not our life consist of the four elements?" and Brutus is commended for possessing these elements properly blended, in which the perfection of a man's nature was supposed to consist:—

On the other hand, the ill mixing of these elements was supposed to be accompanied with a corresponding derangement of the intellectual faculties. Thus, in one of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, a madman is addressed:—

The more mythic form of this legend gives eight things to the formation of the body, instead of four. Our earliest notice of this legend in England occurs in the prose Anglo-Saxon Dialogue between Saturn and Solomon (Thorpe's Analecta, p. 95):—"Saga me þæt andworc þe Adám wæs of-ge-worht se ærusta man? Ic þe secge of viii punda ge-wihte. Saga me hwæt hatton þage? Ic þe secge þæt æroste wæs fóldan pund, of ðam him wæs flesc ge-worht; oðer wæs fyres pund, þanon him wæs þæt blód reád and hát; þridde wæs windes pund, þanon him wæs seo æðung ge-seald; feorðe wæs wolcnes pund, þanon him wæs his módes unstaðelfæstnes ge-seald; fifte wæs gyfe pund, þanon him wæs ge-seald se fat and geðang; syxste wæs blostnena pund, þanon him wæs eagena myssenlicnys ge-seald; seofoðe wæs deawes pund, þanon him becom swat; eahtothe wæs sealtes pund, þanon him wæron þa tearas sealte."—''Tell me the matter of which Adam the first man was made? I tell thee, of eight pound-weights. Tell me their names? I tell thee, the first was a pound of earth, of which his flesh was made; the second was a pound of fire, from which his blood was red and hot; the third was a pound of wind, of which breath was given him; the fourth was a pound of cloud, whereof was given him his instability of mood; the fifth was a pound of ..., whereof was given him fat and sinew; the sixth was a pound of flowers, whereof was given him diversity of eyes; the seventh was a pound of dew, whereof he had sweat; the eighth was a pound of salt, whereof he had salt tears. This legend was still prevalent in England as late as the fifteenth century, when we find it among the curious collection of questions (closely resembling those of Saturn and Solomon just quoted) entitled "Questions bitwene the Maister of Oxinford and his Scoler" (Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. i, p. 230),—"C. Whereof was Adam made? M.'' Of viij. thingis: the first of erthe, the second of fire, the iij$de$ of wynde, the iiij$th$ of clowdys, the v$th$ of aire wherethorough he speketh and thinketh, the vj$th$ of dewe wherby he sweteth, the vij$th$ of flowres, wherof Adam hath his ien, the viij$th$ is salte wherof Adam hath salt teres." A similar account is given in an extract from an old Friesic manuscript communicated to the Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum, by Dr. James Grimm,—"God scôp thene êresta meneska, thet was Adam, fon achta wendem; that bênete fon tha stêne, thet flâsk fon there erthe, thet blôd fon tha wetere, tha herta fon tha winde, thene togta (l. thochta) fon tha wolken, the(ne) suêt fon tha dawe, tha lokkar fon tha gerse, tha âgene fon there sunna, and tha blêrem on thene helga ôm."—God created the first man, who was Adam, of eight elements: the bone from the stone, the flesh from the earth, the blood from the water, the heart from the wind, the thought from the cloud, the sweat from the dew, the hair from the grass, the eyes from the sun.

5169. a proud prikere of Fraunce. A proud rider of France. Until the fifteenth century there appears to have been a strong prejudice among the lower orders against horsemen: their name was connected with oppressors and foreigners. Horses appear to have been comparatively little used for riding among the Anglo-Saxons until they were introduced by the Norman favourites of Edward the Confessor, in whose reign we read that the Anglo-Saxon soldiers in Herefordshire were defeated by the Welsh owing to their awkwardness on horseback, having been unadvisedly mounted by their Norman commander. The Anglo-Norman barons of the three following centuries, with their numerous household of knights and attendants who plundered and oppressed the peasantry and middle classes of society, kept alive the prejudice alluded to, and we trace it in several popular songs. In a song of the reign of Edward I (Political Songs, p. 240), we find the following lines:—

5276. Epist. ad. Philippens. iii, 19.

5283. Epist. Joan. iv, 16.

5289. Matth. xxv, 12 ; Psal. lxxx, 13. Et dimisi eos secundum desideria cordis eorum, ibunt in adventionibus suis.

5305. the four doctours. The four doctors par excellence of the western church were, I believe, Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome.

5354. Ecclesiast. i, 16.

5363. Epist. Jacob. ii, 10. Quicunque autem totam legem servaverit, offendat autem in uno, factus est omnium reus.

5412. as Caym was on Eve. See further on l. 5549. According to a very curious legend, which was popular in the middle ages, Cain was born during the period of penitence and fasting to which our first parents were condemned for their breach of obedience.

5415. Psa. vii, 15. Concepit dolorem et peperit iniquitatem.

5417. Whitaker's text inserts before this line—

5433. Gen. vi, 7. pænitet enim me fecisse eos.

5464. Ezech. xviii, 20.

5470. Whitaker's text adds here:—

5479. Matt. vii, 16.

5497. John xiv, 6.

5507. many a peire, sithen the pestilence. The continuator of William de Nangis, who gives a detailed account of the effects of the great pestilence on the Continent, mentions the hasty marriages which followed it, but he gives quite a different account of their fruitfulness. "Cessante autem dicta epidimia, pestilentia, et mortalitate, nupserunt viri qui remanserunt et mulieres ad invicem, conceperunt uxores residuæ per mundum ultra modum, nulla sterilis efficiebatur, sed prægnantes hinc inde videbantur, et plures geminos pariebant, et aliquæ tres infantes insimul vivos emittebant." The writer goes on to observe, "Sed proh dolor! ex hujus renovatione sæculi non est mundus propter hoc in melius commutatus. Nam homines fuerunt postea magis avari et tenaces, cum multo plura bona quam antea possiderent; magis etiam cupidi et per lites, brigas, et rixas, atque per placita, seipsos conturbantes.... Charitas etiam ab illo tempore refrigescere cæpit valde, et iniquitas abundavit cum ignorantiis et peccatis; nam pauci inveniebantur qui scirent aut vellent in domibus, villis, et castris informare pueros in grammaticalibus rudimentis."—''Contin. G. de Nangis, in Dacherii Spicileg. iii, 110 (ed.'' 1723).

5515. do hem to Dunmowe. This is, I believe, the earliest allusion at present known to the custom of the flitch of bacon at Dunmow, which was evidently, at that time, a matter of general celebrity. In Chaucer, about half a century later, the Wife of Bath says of her two old husbands, and of the way in which she tyrannized over them,—

In a curious religious poem preserved in a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, written about the year 1460, from which some extracts are printed in the "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," ii, 27-29, we have the following satirical allusion to this custom:—

One or two other allusions to this custom have been found in manuscripts of the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth century these allusions become more numerous.

5563. 1 Corinth. vii, 1.

5613. Margery perles. A margarite pearl, perle marguerite. The Latin name for a pearl (margarita) seems to be the origin of this expression.

5634. a love day | to lette with truthe. Love days (Dies amoris) were days fixed for settling differences by umpire, without having recourse to law or to violence. The ecclesiastics seem generally to have had the principal share in the management of these transactions, which throughout the Visions of Piers Ploughman appear to be censured as the means of hindering justice and of enriching the clergy. A little further on, Religion is blamed for being "a ledere of love-dayes." (l. 6219.) In Chaucer, it is said of the friar:—

5646. The quotation is made up from Job xxi, 7 ; and Jerem. xii, 2.

5651. Psal. lxxii, 12.

5659. Psal. x, 4. Quoniam quæ perfecisti, destruxerunt: justus autem quid fecit?

5739. Psal. cxxxi, 6.

5769. Isai. lviii, 7.

5778. Tob. iv, 9. Si multum tibi fuerit, abundanter tribue; si exiguum tibi fuerit, etiam exiguum libenter impertiri stude.

In what follows, Whitaker's text is in parts much more brief than the one now printed; there are also many transpositions, and other variations, which are not of sufficient importance to be pointed out more particularly.

5801. in a pryvee parlour. 5803. in a chambre with a chymenee. This is a curious illustration of contemporary manners. The hall was the apartment in which originally the lord of the household and the male portion of the family passed nearly all their time when at home, and where they lived in a manner in public. The chambers were only used for sleeping, and as places of retirement for the ladies, and had, at first, no fire-places (chymenees), which were added, in course of time, for their comfort. The parlour was an apartment introduced also at a comparatively late period, and was, as its name indicates, a place for private conferences or conversation. As society advanced in refinement, people sought to live less and less in public, and the heads of the household gradually deserted the hall, except on special occasions, and lived more in the parlour and in the "chambre with a chymenee." With the absence of the lord from the hall, its festive character and indiscriminate hospitality began to diminish; and the popular agitators declaimed against this as an unmistakeable sign of the debasement of the times.

5829. Ezech. xviii, 19.

5835. Galat. vi, 5.

5844. Pauli Epist. ad Rom. xii, 3.

5911. seven artz. In the scholastic system of the middle ages, the whole course of learning was divided into seven arts, which were, grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy. They were included in the following memorial distich:—

5963. a baleys. See before, the note on l. 2819.

5990. Caton. Distich. lib. i, 26.

6009. Galat. vi, 10.

6022. Epist. ad Rom. xii, 19.

6037. The second Trin. Coll. MS. reads here—

6146. Matth. vii, 3.

6179. Matth. xv, 14 ; Luke vi, 39 ; Mark (?)

6186. mausede. An error of the press for mansede. See the Glossary.

6191. Offyn and Fynes. Ophni and Phinees. See 1 Samuel iv. (in the Vulgate called 1 Kings).

6199. Psal. xlix, 21.

6207. Isai. lvi, 10.

6217. The text of the Trin. Coll. MS. 2, differs very much from ours in this part of the poem. Instead of 6217-6277, we have the following lines:—

6223. an heepe of houndes. "Walter de Suffield, bishop of Norwich, bequeathed by will his pack of hounds to the king, in 1256. Blomefield's Norf. ii, 347. See Chaucer's Monke, Prol. v, 165. This was a common topic of satire. It occurs again fol. xxvii, a [l. 3321, of the present Edition]. See Chaucer's Testament of Love, page 492, col. ii, Urr. The Archdeacon of Richmond, on his visitation, comes to the priory of Bridlington in Yorkshire, in 1216, with ninety-seven horses, twenty dogs, and three hawks. Dugd. Mon. ii, 65."

6251. Psal. xix, 8.

6259. the abbot of Abyngdone. There was a very ancient and famous abbey at Abingdon in Berkshire. Geoffrey of Monmouth was abbot there. It was the house into which the monks, strictly so called, were first introduced in England, and is, therefore, very properly introduced as the representative of English monachism.

6266. Isai. xiv, 4, 5.

6289. Ecclesiasticus x, 10.

6291. Catonis Distich. iv, 4.

6327. Colos. iii, 1.

6353. mœchaberis. A mistake in the original MS. for necaberis, as it is rightly printed in Crowley's edition.

6372. John iii, 13.

6414. Matth. xxiii, 2. Super cathedram Moysi sederunt Scribæ et Pharisæi.

6440. Psal. xxxv, 8.

6476. Ecclesiastes ix, 1.

6504. Matth. x, 18. The quotation is not quite literal.

6528. For idiotæ irapiunt, read idiotæ vi rapiunt: the error was caused accidentally in the printing, and has escaped in the present edition.

6571. Matth. xx, 4.

6741. John iii, 3.

6755. Matth. vii, 1.

6764. Psal. l, 21.

6815. Isai. lv, 1.

6825. Mark xvi, 16.

6831. may no cherl chartre make. Such was the law of vileinage, then in existence. There is a curious story illustrative of the condition of the cherl or peasant, in the Descriptio Norfolciensium, in my Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, p. 94. The 'cherl,' vilein, or bondman, could not even be put apprentice without the licence of the lord of the soil. In the curious poem on the Constitution of Masonry (14th cent.) published by Mr. Halliwell, the master is particularly cautioned on this point:—

6859. Trojanus. 6869. Gregorie. The legend here alluded to is given briefly as follows, in the life of St. Gregory in the Golden Legend, fol. lxxxxvii,—

"In the tyme that Trayan themperour regned, and on a tyme as he wente toward a batayll out of Rome, it happed that in hys waye as he shold ryde a woman a wydowe came to hym wepyng and sayd: I praye thee, syre, that thou avenge the deth of one my sone, whyche innocently and wythout cause hath ben slayn. Themperour answerd: yf I come agayn fro the batayll hool and sounde, thenne I shall do justyce for the deth of thy sone. Thenne sayd the wydowe: Syre, and yf thou deye in the bataylle, who shall thenne avenge hys deth for me? And the wydowe sayd, is it not better that thou do to me justice, and have the meryte thereof of God, than another have it for thee? Then had Trayan pyté, and descended fro his horse, and dyde justyce in avengynge the deth of her sone. On a tyme saynt Gregory went by the marked of Rome whyche is called the marked of Trayan. And thenne he remembred of the justyce and other good dedes of Trayan, and how he had ben pyteous and debonayr, and was moche sorowfull that he had ben a paynem; and he tourned to the chyrche of saynt Peter waylyng for thorrour of the mescreaunce of Trayan. Thenne answerd a voys fro God, sayng: I have now herd thy prayer, and have spared Trayan fro the payne perpetuelly. By thys thus, as somme saye, the payne perpetuell due to Trayan as a mescreaunt was somme dele take awaye, but for all that was he not quyte fro the pryson of helle; for the sowle may well be in helle, and fele ther no payne, by the mercy of God."

6907. 1 John iii, 15.

6938. Luke xiv, 12.

6964. John viii, 34.

6981. Galat. vi, 2.

7015. Matth. vii, 3.

7063. Luke x, 40.

7072. Luke x, 42.

7113. Although our writer quotes the circumstance from Luke xviii, the words he gives are from Matth. xix, 21.

7113. In Whitaker's text the following passage is here inserted:—

7128. Matth. xvii, 20.

7131. Psal. xxxiii, 11.

7141. Psal. xlii, 1.

7191. James ii, 10.

7194. over-skipperis. Those who skipped over words in reading or chanting the service of the church. The following distich points out the classes of defaulters in this respect:—

A still more numerous list of such offenders is given in the following lines from MS. Lansdowne, 762, fol. 101, v$o$:—

Tutivillus was the popular name of one of the fiends (see Towneley Mysteries, pp. 310, 319; Reliq. Antiq. p. 257). According to an old legend, a hermit walking out met one of the devils bearing a large sack, very full, under the load of which he seemed to labour. The hermit asked him what he carried in his sack. He answered that it was filled with the fragments of words which the clerks had skipped over or mutilated in the performance of the service, and that he was carrying them to hell to be deposited among the stores there.

7195. Psal. xlvi, 7, 8.

7264. Briddes I biheld. A similar sentiment is expressed in the following parallel passage of a modern poet:—

7342. Ecclesiasticus xi, 9.

7344. Instead of ll. 7344-7363, Whitaker's text has the following passage:—

7347. Genes. i, 31.

7363. Cato, Distich. i, 5.

It may be observed here, that Whitaker, in his note on this passage, has very much misunderstood Tyrwhitt (in Chaucer, Cant. T. 3227), in making him the authority for calling the author of the Disticha de Moribus an obscure French writer. Tyrwhitt says that the mode in which Chaucer spells his name (Caton) seems to show that the French translation was more read than the Latin original. The same observation would apply to the present poem: but I am very doubtful how far it is correct. The Distiches of Cato were translated into English, French, German, &c., and were extremely popular. The author of these Distiches, Dionysius Cato, is supposed to have lived under the Antonines, and has certainly no claim to the title of an obscure French writer.

7441-7642. Instead of these lines, Whitaker has the following:—

7453. Luke xii, 38.

7461. Heb. xii, 6.

7464. Psalm xxii, 4.

7470. makynges. 7483. make.—There is a curious analogy between the Greek and the Teutonic languages in the name given to the poet—the Greek (from ), the Anglo-Saxon scóp (from sceopan, to make or create), and the Middle-English maker, preserved in the later Scottish makkar (also applied to a poet), have all the same signification. In the Neo-Latin tongues a different, though somewhat analogous, word was used: the French and Anglo-Norman trouvère, and the Provençal trobador, signify a finder or inventor.

7484. Catonis Distich. iii, 5.

7500. 1 Cor. xiii, 13. Nunc autem manent fides, spes, charitas, tria hæc: major autem horum est charitas.

7528, &c. Aristotle, Ypocras, and Virgile.—These three names were the great representatives of ancient science and literature in the middle ages. Aristotle represented philosophy, in its most general sense; Virgil represented literature in general, and more particularly the ancient writers who formed the grammar course of scholastic learning, whether verse or prose; Ypocras, or Hippocrates, represented medicine. They are here introduced to illustrate the fact that men of science and learning, as well as warriors and rich men, experience the vicissitudes of fortune.

7534. Felice. Perhaps this name is only introduced for the sake of alliteration.

7536. Rosamounde. I suppose the reference is to "fair Rosamond."

7554. Luc. vi, 38.

7567. John iii, 8.

7572. John iii, 11.

7582. John iii, 8.

7600. thorugh caractes. It was the popular belief in the middle ages, that while the Jews were accusing the woman taken in adultery, Christ wrote with his staff on the ground the sins of the accusers, and that when they perceived this they dropped their accusation in confusion at finding that their own guilt was known. See this point curiously illustrated in Mr. Halliwell's Coventry Mysteries, pp. 220, 221. These are the characters alluded to in Piers Ploughman.

7624. Luke vi, 37.

7701. 1 Cor. iii, 19.

7709. Luke ii, 15.

7714. Matth. ii, 1.

7721. Luke ii, 7.

7779. Psalm xxxi, 1.

7795. Luke vi, 39. The ignorance and inefficiency of the parish priests appear to have become proverbial in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the latter century a canon of Lilleshul in Shropshire, named John Myrk, or Myrkes, composed an English poem, or rather metrical treatise, on their duties, which he commences by applying to them this same aphorism of our Saviour:—

It had previously been applied in the same manner to the parish priests by the author of a long French poem (apparently written in England in the fourteenth century) entitled Le Miroir de l'Ome (Speculum Hominis), as follows:—

The following picture of the corrupt manners of the parish priests at this time is extracted from a much longer and more minute censure in the same poem:—

7802. Psal. xv, 5. We might be led to suppose that this was the "neck verse" in the time of Piers Ploughman. In later times the text which was given to read to those who claimed the benefit of clergy is said to have been the beginning of Psal. lv, Miserere mei, &c.

7840. Eccl. v, 5.

7846. Trojanus. See the note on line 6859.

7854. Matth. xvi, 27. Filius enim hominis venturus est in gloria Patris sui cum angelis suis: et tunc reddet unicuique secundum opera ejus.

7915. his flessh is foul flessh. Yet in spite of the "foulness" of its flesh, the peacock was a very celebrated dish at table. For an account of the use made of the peacock in feasts, see Le Grand d'Aussy, Histoire de la Vie privée des Français, tom. i, pp. 299-301, and 361. In the Romance of Mahomet, 13th century, it is said of Dives—

7944. Avynet. In the 14th and 15th centuries, as any grammar was called a Donet, because the treatise of Donatus was the main foundation of them all, so, from Esop and Avienus from whom the materials were taken, any collection of fables was called an Avionet or an Esopet. The title of one of these collections in a MS. of the Bibl. du Roi at Paris is, Compilacio Ysopi alata cum Avionetto, cum quibusdam addicionibus et moralitatibus. (Robert, Fabl. Inéd. Essay, p. clxv.) Perhaps the reference in the present case is to the fable of the Peacock who complained of his voice, the 39th in the collection which M. Robert calls Ysopet, in the morality to which are the following lines:—

7961. Whitaker's text reads here:—

7961. Aristotle, the grete clerk. From the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries the influence of Aristotle's writings in the schools was all-powerful. It was considered almost an impiety to go against his authority. He was indeed "the great clerk."

7967. Sortes. I suppose this is an abbreviated form of the name Socrates. It occurs again in one of the poems printed among the Latin Poetry attributed to Walter Mapes (Camden Society's Publication), which has the following lines:—

7987. 1 Peter iv, 18.

8015. Psalm xxii, 4.

8073. a maister. This word was generally used in the scholastic ages in a restricted sense, to signify one who had taken his degrees in the schools—a master of arts.

8103. Luke x, 7.

8133-8137. These are the indications of different Psalms. Psalm li begins with the words, Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. The thirty-first Psalm commences with the words, Beati quorum remissæ sunt iniquitates, et quorum tecta sunt peccata. Beatus vir, is the beginning of Psalm i. The fifth verse of Psalm xxxi contains the words Dixi: Confitebor adversum me injustitiam meam Domino.

8141. Psalm xxxi, 6.

8145. Psalm l, 19.

8153. Isaiah v, 22.

8155. Whitaker's text has—

The second Trin. Coll. MS. has—

8167. 2 Corinth. xi, 24, 25, 27.

8173, 8180. 2 Cor. xi, 26.

8202. Mahoun. Mahoun was the middle-age name of Mohammed, and in the popular writers was often taken in the mere sense of an idol or pagan deity.

8204. justly wombe. MS. Trin. Coll. 2.

8225. in a frayel. Whitaker's text has in a forel, which he explains by "a wicker basket." The second Trin. Coll. MS. has also in a forell. Forel is the Low-Latin forellus, a bag, sack, or purse: a frayel (fraellum) was a little wicker basket, such as were used for carrying figs or grapes.

8273. Matth. v, 19.

8292. Psalm xiv, 1.

8368. 1 John iv, 18.

8416. Luke xix, 8.

8418. Luke xxi, 1-4.

8444. Surré. Syria.

8474. a mynstrall. The description of the minstrel given here is very curious. For a sketch of the character of this profession see Mr. Shaw's "Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages;" and for more enlarged details of the history of the craft the reader may consult the Introduction to Percy's Reliques, and Chappell's History of National Airs.

8518. a pardon with a peis of leed. The papal bulls, &c., had seals of lead, instead of wax.

8526. Marc. xvi, 17, 18.

8541. Acts iii, 6.

8554. Whitaker's text omits all that follows here to l. 8958 of our text, entering very abruptly upon the subject there treated. Some of the intervening matter had already been inserted in other places in Whitaker's text. See our notes on ll. 2846 and 3030.

8567. cart ... with breed fro Stratforde. Stratford-at-Bow is said to have been famous in old times for its numerous bakers, who supplied a great part of the metropolis. Stowe, in his Survey of London, p. 159 (who appears to have altered the text of Piers Ploughman to suit his own calculation, for all the manuscripts and printed editions I have collated give "twice twenty and ten"), observes, "And because I have here before spoken of the bread carts comming from Stratford at the Bow, ye shall understand that of olde time the bakers of breade at Stratford were allowed to bring dayly (except the Sabbaoth and principall feast) diverse long cartes laden with bread, the same being two ounces in the pennie wheate loafe heavier than the penny wheate loafe baked in the citie, the same to be solde in Cheape, three or foure carts standing there, betweene Gutherans lane and Fausters lane ende, one cart on Cornehill, by the conduit, and one other in Grasse streete. And I have reade that in the fourth yere of Edward the second, Richard Reffeham being maior, a baker named John of Stratforde, for making bread lesser than the assise, was with a fooles whoode on his head, and loaves of bread about his necke, drawne on a hurdle through the streets of this citie. Moreover in the 44. of Edward the third, John Chichester being maior of London, I read in the visions of Pierce Plowman, a booke so called, as followeth. There was a careful commune when no cart came to towne with baked bread from Stratford: tho gan beggers weepe, and workemen were agast, a little this will be thought long in the date of our Dirte, in a drie Averell a thousand and three hundred, twise thirtie and ten, &c. I reade also in the 20. of Henrie the eight, Sir James Spencer being maior, six bakers of Stratford were merced in the Guildhall of London, for baking under the size appoynted. These bakers of Stratford left serving of this citie, I know not uppon what occasion, about 30 yeares since."

8572. a drye Aprill. This is without doubt the dry season placed by Fabyan in the year 1351, which, as he describes it, began with the month of April. The difference of the date arises probably from a different system of computation. Fabian says, "In the sommer of this xxvii yeare, it was so drie that it was many yeres after called the drie sommer. For from the latter ende of March, till the latter ende of Julye, fell lytle rayne or none, by reason whereof manye inconveniences ensued."

8576. Whan Chichestre was maire. According to Fabyan, John Chichester was mayor only once, in 1368, 1369, which was the period of the "thirde mortalytie." The other authorities seem to agree in giving this as the year of Chichester's mayoralty. He may perhaps have been mayor more than once. See.

8645. Galat. i, 10.

8685. Psalm x, 7.

8707, 8708. The two persons mentioned here (the shoemaker of Southwark and dame Emma of Shoreditch) were probably eminent sorcerers and fortune-tellers of the time.

8769-8778. To understand fully this passage, it must be borne in mind that the corn lands were not so universally hedged as at present, and that the portions belonging to different persons were separated only by a narrow furrow, as is still the case in some of the uninclosed lands in Cambridgeshire.

8812. Brugges. Bruges was the great mart of continental commerce during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries.

8813. Pruce-lond—Prussia, which was then the farthest country in the interior of Europe with which a regular trade was carried on by the English merchants.

8827. Matth. vi, 21.

8858. Luke vi, 25.

8879. Psalm ci, 7.

8891. a lady of sorwe. The old printed edition has a laye of sorow.

8900. Whitaker has no division here, but continues the previous passus, and omits many lines and has many variations in what follows.

8903. I slepe therinne o nyghtes. This passage is curious, because at the time the poem was written, it was the custom for all classes of society to go to bed quite naked, a practice which is said to have been not entirely laid aside in the sixteenth century. We see constant proofs of this practice in the illuminations of old manuscripts. The following memorial lines are written in the margin of a MS. of the thirteenth century:—

In the Roman de la Violette, the old nurse expresses her astonishment that her young mistress should retain her chemise when she goes to bed:—

The lady explains her conduct by stating that she has a mark on the breast which she had promised that no one should ever see.

8906. Luke xiv, 20.

8950. noon heraud ne harpour. Robes and other garments were among the most usual gifts bestowed upon minstrels and heralds by the princes and great barons. See before, ll. 8480, 8481.

8970. Matth. vi, 25, 26.

8999. John xiv, 13 ; xv, 16. Matth. iv, 4.

9037. Psalm cxliv, 16.

9039. fourty wynter. During the forty years that the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness, they did not apply themselves to agriculture.

9049. Sevene slepe. The legend of the seven sleepers was remarkably popular during the middle ages.

9101. Psalm xxxi. 1.

9176. Psalm lxxv, 6.

9178. Psalm lxxii, 20. Whitaker's Passus sextus de Dowel ends with this quotation.

9317. Both in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, and in the Creed, there are frequent expressions of indignation at the extravagant expenditure in painting the windows of the abbeys and churches. It must not be forgotten that a little later the same feeling as that exhibited in these satires led to the destruction of many of the noblest monuments of medieval art.

9344. Mat. xix, 23, 24.

9347. Apocal. xiv, 13.

9352. Matth. v, 3.

9452. Compare the defence of poverty in Chaucer (Cant. T. 6774):—

The definition given in Piers Ploughman is taken from the Dialogues of Secundus, where it is thus expressed:—"Quid est paupertas? Odibile bonum, sanitatis mater, curarum remotio, absque sollicitudine semita, sapientiæ reparatrix, negotium sine damno, intractabilis substantia, possessio absque calumnia, incerta fortuna, sine sollicitudine felicitas." (MS. Reg. 9 A xiv, fol. 140 v$o$.) See also Roger de Hoveden, p. 816, and Vincent de Beauvais, Spec. Hist. lib. x, c. 71.

9517. the paas of Aultone. Whitaker has Haultoun, and says that this pass is Halton "in Cheshire, formerly infamous to a proverb as a haunt of robbers."

9529. Cantabit, etc. The author has modified, or the scribes have corrupted, the well-known line of Juvenal,

9665. These definitions will be found in Isidore, Etymol. lib. xl, c. 1, and Different, lib. ii, c. 29. They are repeated by Alcuin, De Anim. Rat. N. x, p. 149, Anima est, dum vivificat; dum contemplatur, spiritus est; dum sentit, sensus est; dum sapit, animus est; dum intelligit, mens est; dum discernit, ratio est; dum consentit, voluntas est; dum recordatur, memoria est.

9708. Prov. xxv, 27.

9740. Epist. ad Rom. xii, 3.

9751. the seven synnes. The seven deadly sins were—pride, anger, envy, sloth, covetousness, gluttony, and lechery. "Now ben they cleped chiefetaines, for as moche as they be chiefe, and of hem springen alle other sinnes. The rote of thise sinnes than is pride, the general rote of alle harmes. For of this rote springen certain braunches: as, ire, envie, accidie or slouthe, avarice or coveitise, (to commun understonding) glotonie, and lecherie: and eche of thise chief sinnes hath his braunches and his twigges." Chaucer, {{Canterbury Tales (ed. Skeat)/Parson#s23|Persones Tale, p. 40]].

9766{{anchor|notevs9766}}. Psal. xcvi, 7 ; iv, 3.

9828{{anchor|notevs9828}}. in Latyn. The monks had collections of comparisons, similitudes, proverbs, &c., to be introduced in their sermons, and even when preaching in English they generally quoted them in Latin. This I suppose to be the meaning of the expression here.

9918{{anchor|notevs9918}}. Matth. xviii, 3.

9934{{anchor|notevs9934}}. 1 Corinth. xiii, 4.

9946{{anchor|notevs9946}}. 1 Corinth. xiii, 12.

9957{{anchor|notevs9957}}. a tunicle of Tarse. Tarse was the name given to a kind of silk, said to have been brought from a country of that name on the borders of Cathai, or China. Chaucer (Cant. T. l. 2162), describing "the king of Inde," says—

{{left margin|10%| His coote armour was of a cloth of Tars, Cowched of perlys whyte, round and grete. }}

Ducange (v. Tarsicus) quotes a visitation of the treasury of St. Paul's, London, in 1295, where there is mention of Tunica et dalmatica de panno Indico Tarsico Besantato de auro, and of a Casula de panno Tarsico.

10004{{anchor|notevs10004}}. Psal. vi, 7.

10009{{anchor|notevs10009}}. Psal. l, 19.

10062{{anchor|notevs10062}}. Matth. vi, 16.

10069{{anchor|notevs10069}}. Edmond and Edward. St. Edmund the martyr, king of East Anglia, and king Edward the Confessor.

10124{{anchor|notevs10124}}. Psal. iv, 9.

10159{{anchor|notevs10159}}. Antony and Egidie. Whitaker has Antonie and Ersenie. St. Antony is well known as the father and patron of monks, and for the persecutions he underwent from the devil. St. Giles, or Egidius, is said to have been a Greek, who came to France about the end of the seventh century, and established himself in a hermitage near the mouth of the Rhone, and afterwards in the neighbourhood of Nismes. Arsenius was a noble Roman who, at the end of the fourth century, retired to Egypt to live the life of an anchoret in the desert.

10174{{anchor|notevs10174}}. after an hynde cride. The monkish biographer of St. Giles relates, that he was for some time nourished with the milk of a hind in the forest, and that a certain prince discovered his retreat while hunting in his woods, by pursuing the hind till it took shelter in St. Giles's hermitage.

10183{{anchor|notevs10183}}. Hadde a bird. This incident is not found in the common lives of St. Antony.

10187{{anchor|notevs10187}}. Poul. Paul was a Grecian hermit, who lived in the tenth century in the wilderness of Mount Latrus, and became the founder of one of the monastic establishments there. He was famous for the rigorous severity of his life.

10203{{anchor|notevs10203}}. Marie Maudeleyne. By Mary Magdalen here is meant probably St. Mary the Egyptian, who lived in the fifth century, and who, according to the legend, after having spent her youth in unbridled debauchery, repented in her twenty-ninth year, and lived during the remainder of her life (forty-seven years) in the wilderness beyond the Jordan, without seeing one human being during that time, and sustained only by the precarious food which she found in the desert.

10239{{anchor|notevs10239}}. Whitaker's text here adds a passage relating to Tobias:—

{{left margin|10%| Marie Magdalene By mores levede and dewes; Love and leel byleyve Heeld lyf and soule togedere.

{{gap|0.7em}}Maria Egyptiaca Eet in thyrty wynter Bote thre lytel loves, And love was her souel. Ich can nat rekene hem ryght now, Ne reherce here names, That lyveden thus for oure Lordes love Meny longe yeres, Whitoute borwyng other beggyng, Other the boke lyeth; And woneden in wildernesse Among wilde bestes; Ac dorst no beste byten hem By daye ne by nyghte, Bote myldeliche whan thei metten Maden louh chere, And feyre byfore tho men Fauhnede whith the tayles. Ac bestes brouhte hem no mete, Bote onliche the fouweles; In tokenynge that trywe man Alle tymes sholde Fynde honeste men in holy men And other ryghtful peuple. For wolde never feithful goud That freres and monkes token Lyflode of luther wynnynges In al here lyf tyme; As wytnesseth holy writt Whot Thobie deyde To is wif, whan he was blynde, Herde a lambe blete,— 'A! wyf, be war,' quath he, 'What ye have here ynne. Lord leyve,' quath the lede, 'No stole thyng be here!' ''Videte ne furtum sit. Et alibi, Melius est mori quam male vivere.'' This is no more to mene, Bote men of holy churche Sholde receyve ryght nauth Bot that ryght wolde, And refuse reverences And raveneres offrynges; Thenne wolde lordes and ladies Be loth to agulte, And to take of here tenaunts More than treuthe wolde; And marchauns merciable wolde be, And men of lawe bothe. Wold religeouse refuse Raveneres almesse, Then Grace sholde growe yut And grene-leved wexe, And Charité, that child is now, Sholde chaufen of hem self, And comfortye all crystene, Wold holy churche amende. Job the parfit patriarch This proverbe wrot and tauhte, To makye a man lovye mesure, That monkes beeth and freeres. Nunquam dicit Job, rugiet onager, etc. }}

Throughout this part of the poem, Whitaker's text differs very much in words and phraseology from the one now printed, but it would take up too much space to point out all these variations.

10247{{anchor|notevs10247}}. Job vi, 5.

10270{{anchor|notevs10270}}. 2 Corinth. ix, 9.

10303{{anchor|notevs10303}}. These sentences appear to be quotations from the fathers of the Latin Church.

10322{{anchor|notevs10322}}. lussheburwes. A foreign coin, much adulterated, common in England in the middle of the fourteenth century. Chaucer (C. T. 15445) uses the word in a very expressive passage:—

{{left margin|10%| This maketh that oure wyfes wol assaye Religious folk, for thay may bettre paye Of Venus payementes than may we: God woot! no lusscheburghes paye ye. }}

Among the foreign money, mostly of a base quality, which came into this country in the fourteenth century, the coinage of the counts of Luxemburg, or, as it was then called, Lusenburg (hence called lussheburwes and lusscheburghes), seems to have been the most abundant, and to have given most trouble. These coins were the subject of legislation in 1346, 1347, 1348, and 1351; so that the grievance must have been at its greatest height at the period to which the poem of Piers Ploughman especially belongs. Many of these coins are preserved, and found in the cabinets of collectors; they are in general very much like the contemporary English coinage, and might easily be taken for it, but the metal is very base.

10368{{anchor|notevs10368}}. Grammer, the ground of al. In the scholastic learning of the middle ages, grammar was considered as the first of the seven sciences, and the foundation-stone of all the rest. See my Essay on Anglo-Saxon Literature, introductory to vol. i. of the Biographia Britannica Literaria, p. 72. The importance of grammar is thus stated in the Image du Monde of Gautier de Metz (thirteenth century):—

{{left margin|10%| Li primeraine des vij. ars, Dont or n'est pas seus li quars, A ichest tans, chou est gramaire, Sans laquele nus ne vaut gaire Qui à clergie veut aprendre: Car petit puet sans li entendre. Gramaires si est fondemens De clergie et coumenchemens; Cou est li porte de science, Par cui on vient à sapience. De lettres en gramaire escole Qui ensegne et forme parole, Soit en Latin ou en Roumans, Ou en tous langages palans; Qui bien saroit toute gramaire, Toute parole saroit faire. Par parole fist Dius le monde, Et sentence est parole monde. }}

10398{{anchor|notevs10398}}. Corpus Christi feeste. Corpus Christi day was a high festival of the Church of Rome, held annually on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, in memory, as was said, of the miraculous confirmation of transubstantiation under pope Urban IV.

10418{{anchor|notevs10418}}. This Makometh. This account of Mohammed was the one most popularly current in the middle ages. According to Hildebert, who wrote a life of the pseudo-prophet in Latin verse in the twelfth century, Mohammed was a Christian, skilled in magical arts, who, on the death of the patriarch of Jerusalem, aspired to succeed him:—

{{left margin|10%| Nam male devotus quidam baptismate lotus, {{gap|1.4em}}Plenus perfidia vixit in ecclesia. .     .      .      .      .      .  Nam cum transisset Pater illius urbis, et isset {{gap|1.4em}}In cœlum subito corpore disposito, Tunc exaltari magus hic et pontificari {{gap|1.4em}}Affectans avide; se tamen hæc pavide Dixit facturum, nisi sciret non nociturum {{gap|1.4em}}Si præsul fiat, cum Deus hoc cupiat. }}

His intrigues being discovered, the emperor drives him away, and in revenge he goes and founds a new sect. The story of the pigeon (which is not in Hildebert) is found in Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist. lib. xxiii, c. 40. This story is said to be founded in truth. Neither of them are found in the Roman de Mahomet (by Alexander du Pont), written in the thirteenth century, and edited by MM. Reinaud and Michel, Paris, 1831, 8vo, a work which contains much information concerning the Christian notions relative to Mohammed in the middle ages.

10478{{anchor|notevs10478}}. John xvi, 24.

10481{{anchor|notevs10481}}, 10486{{anchor|notevs10486}}. Matth. v, 13.

10499{{anchor|notevs10499}}. Ellevene holy men. The eleven apostles who remained after the apostasy of Judas and the crucifixion of their Lord.

10550{{anchor|notevs10550}}. Ne fesauntz y-bake. The pheasant was formerly held in the same honour as the peacock (see before the note on l. 7915), and was served at table in the same manner. It was considered one of the most precious dishes. See Le Grand d'Aussy, Hist. de la Vie privée des François, ii, 19. The Miroir de l'Ome (MS. in the possession of Mr. Russell Smith) says (punning) of the luxurious prelates of the fourteenth century,—

{{left margin|10%| Pour le phesant et le bon vin Le bien-faisant et le divin L'evesque laist à nonchalure; Si quiert la coupe et crusequin, Ainz que la culpe du cristin Pour corriger et mettre en cure. }}

10553{{anchor|notevs10553}}. Matth. xxii, 4.

10581{{anchor|notevs10581}}. Mark xvi, 15.

10585{{anchor|notevs10585}}. So manye prelates. 10699{{anchor|notevs10699}}. that huppe aboute in Engelond. The pope appointed many titular bishops of foreign sees in which, from the nature of circumstances, they could not possibly reside, and who therefore were a burthen upon the church. Some of these prelates appear to have resorted to England, and to have exercised the episcopal functions, consecrating churches, &c. The church of Elsfield, in Oxfordshire, was consecrated by a foreign bishop. (See Kennett's Parochial Antiquities.)

10593{{anchor|notevs10593}}. John x, 11.

10599{{anchor|notevs10599}}. Matth. xx, 4, 7.

10606{{anchor|notevs10606}}. Matth. vii, 7.

10617{{anchor|notevs10617}}. Galat. vi, 14.

10632{{anchor|notevs10632}}. That roode thei honoure. A cross was the common mark on the reverse of our English money at this period, and for a long time previous to it. The point of satirical wit in this passage of Piers Ploughman appears to be taken from the old Latin rhymes of the beginning of the thirteenth century. See the curious poem De Cruce Denarii, in Walter Mapes, p. 223. Another poem in the same volume (p. 38) speaks thus of the court of Rome:—

{{left margin|10%| Nummis in hac curia non est qui non vacet; Crux placet, rotunditas, et albedo placet. }}

10637{{anchor|notevs10637}}. Shul torne as templers dide. The suppression of the order of the Templars was at this time fresh in people's memories. It was the general belief, and not without some foundation, that the Templars had entirely degenerated from their original sanctity and faithfulness, and that before the dissolution of the order they were addicted to degrading vices and superstitions; and they were accused of sacrificing everything else to their grasping covetousness.

10659{{anchor|notevs10659}}. Whan Constantyn. The Christian church began first to be endowed with wealth and power under the emperor Constantine the Great.

10649{{anchor|notevs10649}}. Luke i, 52.

10695{{anchor|notevs10695}}-10699. Instead of these lines, Whitaker's text has the following:—

{{left margin|10%| And bereth name of Neptalym, Of Nynyve and Damaske. For when the holy kynge of hevene Sende hus sone to eerthe, Meny myracles he wroughte, Man for to turne, In ensample that men sholde See by sad reyson That men myghte nat be savede Bote thorw mercy and grace, And thorw penaunce and passioun, And parfyght byleyve; And bycam a man of a mayde, And metropolitanus And baptisede an busshoppede Whit the blode of hus herte, Alle that wilnede other wolde Whit inwhight byleyve hit. Meny seint sitthe Suffrede deth alsoo, For to enferme the faithe Ful wyde where deyden, In Inde and in Alisaundrie, In Ermanye, in Spayne; An fro mysbyleve Meny man turnede. In savacion of mannys saule Seynt Thomas of Cauntelbury Among unkynde Cristene In holy churche was sleye, And alle holy churche Honourede for that deyinge: He is a forbusur to alle busshopes, And a bryghthe myrour, And sovereynliche to alle suche That of Surrye bereth name, And nat in Engelounde to huppe aboute, And halewen men auters. }}

In the remainder of this passus, Whitaker's text differs much from the one I have printed, but in such a manner that to give here the variations it would be necessary to reprint the whole. In the remainder of the poem, the variations are not great or important, being only such as we always find in different copies of poems which enjoyed considerable popularity.

10716{{anchor|notevs10716}}. Isai. iii, 7.

10721{{anchor|notevs10721}}. Malach. iii, 10.

10733{{anchor|notevs10733}}. Luke x, 27. Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et ex tota anima tua, et ex omni mente tua, et proximum tuum sicut teipsum.

10755{{anchor|notevs10755}}. John xi, 43.

10787{{anchor|notevs10787}}. litlum and litlum, by little and little, gradually. It is the pure Anglo-Saxon phrase. In the Anglo-Saxon version of Genesis xl, 10, the Latin paulatim is rendered by lytlum and lytlum.

10844{{anchor|notevs10844}}. Psal. xxxvi, 24.

10891{{anchor|notevs10891}}. Matth. xii, 32.

11000{{anchor|notevs11000}}. Luke i, 38.

11023{{anchor|notevs11023}}. Matth. ix, 12. Mark ii, 17. Luke v, 31.

11033{{anchor|notevs11033}}. Matth. xxvi, 37.

11044{{anchor|notevs11044}}. Matth. xi, 18.

11075{{anchor|notevs11075}}. Matth. xxi, 13.

11121{{anchor|notevs11121}}. Matth. xviii, 7.

11238{{anchor|notevs11238}}. Matth. xxvii, 46, and Mark xv, 34.

11300{{anchor|notevs11300}}. Rom. iv, 13.

11322{{anchor|notevs11322}}. John i, 29 and 36.

11396{{anchor|notevs11396}}. Matth. xx, 40.

11518{{anchor|notevs11518}}, 11520{{anchor|notevs11520}}. ''lo! here silver ... two pens.'' It must be remembered that at this period the mass of the coinage, including pence, halfpence, and farthings, was of silver; copper came into use for the smaller coinage at a later period. Two pence of Edward III would be worth about two shillings of our modern money.

11670{{anchor|notevs11670}}. John xii, 32.

11708{{anchor|notevs11708}}. tu fabricator omnium. This was one of the hymns of the catholic church.

11866{{anchor|notevs11866}}. Luke xiii, 27.

11883{{anchor|notevs11883}}. 1 Corinth. xiii, 1.

11894{{anchor|notevs11894}}. Matth. vii, 21.

11998{{anchor|notevs11998}}. Thre thynges. This proverb is frequently quoted by the satirical and facetious writers of the middle ages. Thus in Chaucer (C. T. 5860):—

{{left margin|10%| Thou saist, that droppyng houses, and eek smoke, And chydyng wyves, maken men to fle Out of here oughne hous. }}

In the poem entitled Golias de Conjuge non ducenda, in Walter Mapes, p. 83, the proverb is alluded to in the following words:—

{{left margin|10%| Fumus, et mulier, et stillicidia, Expellunt hominem a domo propria. }}

There was an old French proverbial distich to the same effect,—

{{left margin|10%| Fumée, pluye, et femme sans raison, Chassent l'homme de sa maison. }}

12040{{anchor|notevs12040}}. 2 Corinth. xii, 9.

12097{{anchor|notevs12097}}. to be dubbed. These and the following lines contain a continued allusion to the ceremonies of knighthood and tournaments.

12106{{anchor|notevs12106}}. Psal. cxvii, 26.

12211{{anchor|notevs12211}}. Matth. xxvii, 54.

12232{{anchor|notevs12232}}, 12244{{anchor|notevs12244}}. Longeus ... this blynde bacheler. This alludes to one of the many legends which the monks engrafted upon the scripture history. Longeus is said to have been the name of the soldier who pierced the side of Christ with his spear; and it is pretended that he was previously blind from his birth, but that the blood of the Saviour ran down his spear, and a drop of it touching his eye, he was instantly restored to sight, by which miracle he was converted. See, in illustration of this subject, Halliwell's Coventry Mysteries, p. 334; The Towneley Mysteries, p. 321; Jubinal, Mystères inédits du quinzième Siècle, tom. ii, pp. 254-257; &c.

12319{{anchor|notevs12319}}, 12418{{anchor|notevs12418}}, 12420{{anchor|notevs12420}}. Mercy and Truthe, ... Pees ... Rightwisnesse. Lydgate seems to have had this passage in his mind, when he described the four sisters in the following lines at the commencement of one of his poems (MS. Harl. 2255, fol. 21):—

{{left margin|10%| Mercy and Trouthe mette on an hih mounteyn Briht as the sonne with his beemys cleer, Pees and Justicia walkyng on the pleyn, And with foure sustryn, moost goodly of ther cheer, List nat departe nor severe in no maneer, Of oon accoord by vertuous encrees, Joyned in charité, pryncessis moost enteer, Mercy and Trouthe, Rihtwisnesse and Pees. }}

12361{{anchor|notevs12361}}. a tale of Waltrot. This name, like Wade in Chaucer, appears to have been that of a hero of romances and tales, or a personage belonging to the popular superstitions. Perhaps it may be connected with the old German Waltschrat (satyrus, pilosus). See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 270.

12438{{anchor|notevs12438}}. Psal. xxix, 6.

12566{{anchor|notevs12566}}. Matth. xiv, 28.

12599{{anchor|notevs12599}}. a spirit speketh to helle. The picture of the "Harrowing of Hell," which here fol, bears a striking resemblance to the analogous scene in the old Mysteries, particularly in that edited by Mr. Halliwell under this title, 8vo, 1840. Compare the play on the same subject in the Towneley Mysteries, p. 244.

12601{{anchor|notevs12601}}. Psal. xxiii, 7, 9.

12645{{anchor|notevs12645}}, 12669{{anchor|notevs12669}}, 12676{{anchor|notevs12676}}. sevene hundred wynter ... thritty wynter ... two and thritty wynter. Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers always counted duration of time by winters and nights; for so many years, they said so many winters, and so many nights for so many days. This form continued long in popular usage, and still remains in our words fortnight and se'nnight.

12663{{anchor|notevs12663}}. Gobelyn. Goblin is a name still applied to a devil. It belongs properly to a being of the old Teutonic popular mythology, a hob-goblin, the "lubber-fiend" of the poet, and seems to be identical with the German kobold. (See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 286.) Gobelin occurs as the name of one of the shepherds in the Mystery of the Nativity, printed by M. Jubinal in his Mystères inédits, vol. ii, p. 71. It occurs as the name of a devil in a song of the commencement of the fourteenth century, Political Songs, p. 238:—

{{left margin|10%| Sathanas huere syre {{gap|0.7em}}Seyde on is sawe, Gobelyn made is gerner {{gap|0.7em}}Of gromene mawe. }}

12679{{anchor|notevs12679}}. to warne Pilates wif. This is an allusion to a popular legend prevalent at this time that the devil wished to hinder Christ's crucifixion, and that he appeared to Pilate's wife in a dream, and caused her to beseech her husband not to condemn the Saviour. It was founded on the passage in Matthew xxvii, 19. Sedente autem illo pro tribunali, misit ad eum uxor ejus, dicens: Nihil tibi et justo illi: multa enim passa sum hodie per visum propter eum. The most complete illustration of the passage of Piers Ploughman will be found in Halliwell's Coventry Mysteries, p. 308, "Pilate's Wife's Dream."

12691{{anchor|notevs12691}}. And now I se wher a soule | Cometh hiderward seillynge, | With glorie, &c. With this beautiful passage may be compared a very similar one in the Samson Agonistes of Milton:—

{{left margin|10%| But who is this, what thing of sea or land? Female of sex it seems, That so bedeck'd, ornate and gay, Comes this way sailing Like a stately ship Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles Of Javan or Gadire, With all her bravery on, and tackle trim. }}

12753{{anchor|notevs12753}}. y-lik a lusard. In the illuminations of manuscripts representing the scene of the temptation, the serpent is often figured with legs like a lizard or crocodile, and a human face.

12759{{anchor|notevs12759}}. Matth. v, 38.

12781{{anchor|notevs12781}}. Matth. v, 17.

12801{{anchor|notevs12801}}. thorugh a tree. Some of the medieval legends go still farther, and pretended that the tree from which the wood of the cross was made was descended directly from a plant from the tree in Paradise of which Adam and Eve were tempted to eat the fruit.

12805{{anchor|notevs12805}}. Psal. vii, 16.

12840{{anchor|notevs12840}}. Psal. l, 6.

12876{{anchor|notevs12876}}. 2 Corinth. xii, 4.

12886{{anchor|notevs12886}}. Psal. cxlii, 2.

12896{{anchor|notevs12896}}. Astroth. This name, as given to one of the devils, occurs in a curious list of actors in the Miracle Play of St. Martin, given by M. Jubinal, in the preface to his Mystères inédits, vol. ii, p. ix. It is similarly used in the Miracle Play of the Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul, Jubinal, ib. vol. i, p. 69. In one of the Towneley Mysteries (p. 246), this name is likewise given to one of the devils:—

{{left margin|10%| Calle up Astarot and Anaballe, To gyf us counselle in this case. }}

12937{{anchor|notevs12937}}. Psal. lxxxiv, 11.

12943{{anchor|notevs12943}}. Psal. cxxxii, 1.

13222{{anchor|notevs13222}}. 1 Sam. xviii, 7.

13274{{anchor|notevs13274}}. Luke xxiv, 46.

13317{{anchor|notevs13317}}. John xx, 29.

13375{{anchor|notevs13375}}. Veni creator spiritus. The first line of the hymn at vespers, on the feast of Pentecost.

13412{{anchor|notevs13412}}. 1 Corinth. xii, 4.

13550{{anchor|notevs13550}}. Cato, Distich. 14, lib. ii:—

{{left margin|10%| Esto forti animo cum sis damnatus inique; Nemo diu gaudet qui judice vincit iniquo. }}

13789{{anchor|notevs13789}}. I knew nevere cardynal. The contributions levied upon the clergy for the support of the pope's messengers and agents was a frequent subject of complaint in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

13807{{anchor|notevs13807}}. At Avynone among the Jewes. In the middle ages there was a large congregation of Jews at Avignon, as in most of the principal cities in the south of France. In the civil dissensions which disturbed Italy during this century, the pope was frequently obliged to take shelter at Avignon and other places within the French territory.

13825{{anchor|notevs13825}}. Matth. v, 45.

13855{{anchor|notevs13855}}. Rom. xii, 19 ; Hebr. x, 30.

14142{{anchor|notevs14142}}. Kynde cessede. The lines which follow contain an allusion to the dissipation of manners which followed the pestilence.

14191{{anchor|notevs14191}}, 14196{{anchor|notevs14196}}. Westmynstre Halle ... the Arches. The law courts have been held at Westminster from the earliest Anglo-Norman times, it being the king's chief palace. The court of the arches was a very ancient consistory court of the archbishop of Canterbury, held at Bow church in London, which was called St. Mary de Arcubus or St. Mary le Bow, from the circumstance of its having been built on arches.

14211{{anchor|notevs14211}}. leet daggen hise clothes. An account of the mode in which the rich fashionable robes of the dandies of the fourteenth century were dagged, or cut in slits at the edges and borders, will be found in any work on costume: it is frequently represented in the contemporary illuminations in manuscripts. Chaucer, in the "Persones Tale," when treating of pride and of the "superfluitee of clothing," speaks of "the costlewe furring in hir gounes, so moche pounsoning of chesel to maken holes, so moche dagging of sheres," &c. And again, "if so be that they wolden yeve swiche pounsoned and dagged clothing to the povre peple, it is not convenient to were for hir estate," &c. In the Alliterative Poem on the Deposition of Richard II (printed for the Camden Society), p. 21, the clergy is blamed for not preaching against the new fashions in dress:—

{{left margin|10%| For wolde they blame the burnes That broughte newe gysis, And dryve out the dagges And alle the Duche cotis. }}

Whitaker gives the following singular explanation of this passage:—"Let dagge hus clothes, probably, let them fall to the ground, or divested himself of them; for warriors are 'succinct' for battle as well as 'for speed!'"

14269{{anchor|notevs14269}}. A glazene howve. I suppose this means that, in return for his gold, Physic gave him a hood of glass, i. e. a very frail protection for his person.

14367{{anchor|notevs14367}}. of the Marche of Walys. Whitaker's text reads, of the Marche of Yrelonde. The clergy of the Welsh border appear, from allusions in other works, to have been proverbial for their ignorance and irregularity of life.

14438{{anchor|notevs14438}}. Psal. cxlvi, 4.

14444{{anchor|notevs14444}}. wage menne to werre. This is a curious account of the composition of an army in the fourteenth century.

14482{{anchor|notevs14482}}. Exod. xx, 17.

14511{{anchor|notevs14511}}. suffre the dede in dette, i. e., The friars persuade people to leave to them, under pretence of saving their souls, the property which was due to their creditors, and thus, after their death, their debts remain unpaid.

14615{{anchor|notevs14615}}, 14617{{anchor|notevs14617}}. this lymytour ... he salvede so oure wommen. The whole of this passage, taken with what precedes, is an amusing satire upon the limitour. Compare the description of the limitour given by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, ll. 208-271, who alludes to his kindness for the women. The limitour was a friar licensed to visit and beg within certain limits. His pertinacity and inquisitiveness in visiting, alluded to in the name given him in Piers Ploughman (Sir Penetrans-domos), is admirably satirized by Chaucer, in the opening of the "Wif of Bathes Tale:"—

{{left margin|10%| In olde dayes of the kyng Arthour, Of which that Britouns speken gret honour, Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie; The elf-queen, with hir joly compaignye, Daunced ful oft in many a grene mede. This was the old oppynyoun, as I rede I speke of many hundrid yer ago; But now can no man see noon elves mo. For now the grete charité and prayeres Of lymytours and other holy freres, That sechen every lond and every streem, As thik as motis in the sonne-beem, Blesynge halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, Citees and burghes, castels hihe, and toures, Thropes and bernes, shepnes and dayeries, This makith that ther ben no fayeries: For ther as wont was to walken an elf, Ther walkith noon but the lymytour himself, In undermeles and in morwenynges, And saith his matyns and his holy thinges, As he goth in his lymytacioun. }}

{{c|———}}

{{c|NOTES TO THE CREED.}}

65{{anchor|notecr65}}. a Minoure. These were the Gray or Franciscan Friars, founded at the beginning of the thirteenth century by St. Francis of Assise. They are supposed to have come to England in 1224, when they settled, first at Canterbury, and afterwards at London.

75{{anchor|notecr75}}. a Carm. 95{{anchor|notecr95}}. Maries men. The Carmelites, or White Friars, pretended to be of great antiquity, and were originally established at Mount Carmel, from whence they were driven by the Saracens about the year 1238. They were brought into England in 1244, and settled first at Alnwick in Northumberland, and at Ailesford in Kent.

About the date (or a little before) of our poem, the Carmelites appear to have been very active in asserting in a boasting manner the superiority of their order over the others. An anecdote told by Fuller (History of Cambridge, p. 113), under the year 1371, affords a curious illustration. "John Stokes, a Dominican, born at Sudbury, in Suffolk, but studying in Cambridge, as champion of his order, fell foul on the Carmelites, chiefly for calling themselves 'The brothers of the Blessed Virgin,' and then by consequence all knew whose uncle they pretend themselves. He put them to prove their pedigree by Scripture, how the kindred came in. In brief, Bale saith, 'he left red notes in the white coats of the Carmelites,' he so belaboured them with his lashing language. But John Hornby a Carmelite (born at Boston in Lincolnshire) undertook him, called by Bale Cornutus, by others Hornet-bee, so stinging his stile. He proved the brothership of his order to the Virgin Mary by visions, allowed true by the infallible popes, so that no good Christian durst deny it."

130{{anchor|notecr130}}. Freres of the Pye. The Fratres de Pica, or Friars of the Pye, are said to have received their name from the circumstance of their wearing their outer garment black and white like a magpie. Very little is known of their history. They are said to have had but one house in England.

143{{anchor|notecr143}}. Robartes men. See before the notes on the Vision, ll. 88 and ll. 3410.

155{{anchor|notecr155}}. miracles of mydwyves. The monks had many relics and superstitious practices to preserve and aid women in childbirth. One of the commissioners for the suppression of the monasteries mentions among the relics of a house he had visited, "Mare Magdalens girdell, and yt is wrappyde and coveride with white, sent also with gret reverence to women traveling:" he had previously spoken of "oure Lades gyrdell of Bruton, rede silke, wiche is a solemne reliquie sent to women travelyng wiche shall not miscarie in partu." (MS. Cotton. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 249.) See the account of a gem, which had a similar virtue, in Matthew Paris's History of the Abbots of St. Albans.

305{{anchor|notecr305}}. the Prechoures. The Black Friars, or Dominicans, were founded by St. Dominic, a Spanish monk of the end of the eleventh century. They were called Friars Preachers, because their chief duty was to preach and convert heretics. They came into England in 1221, and had their first houses in Oxford.

327{{anchor|notecr327}}. posternes in privité. These private posterns are frequently alluded to in the reports of the Commissioners for the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. One of them, speaking of the abbey of Langden, says, "Wheras immediatly descendying fro my horse, I sent Bartlett your servant, with all my servantes to circumcept the abbay and surely to kepe all bake dorres and startyng hoilles, and I myself went alone to the abbottes logeying joyning upon the feldes and wode, evyn lyke a cony clapper full of startyng hoilles." (MS. Cotton. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 127.) Another commissioner (MS. Cotton. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 35), in a letter concerning the monks of the Charter-house in London, says, "These charterhowse monkes wolde be callyde solytary, but to the cloyster dore ther be above xxiiij. keys in the handes of xxiiij. persons, and hit is lyke my letters, unprofytable tayles and tydinges and sumtyme perverse concell commythe and goythe by reason therof. Allso to the buttrey dore ther be xij. sundrye keys in xij. [mens] handes wherin symythe to be small husbandrye."

351{{anchor|notecr351}}. merkes of merchauntes. Their ciphers or badges painted in the windows. For examples, see the note in Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. ii, p. 98, last edition.

481{{anchor|notecr481}}. euelles. Perhaps for evel-les, i. e. without evil.

534{{anchor|notecr534}}. the Austyns. The Austin Friars, or Friars Eremites of the order of St. Augustine, came into England about the year 1250. Before the end of the fourteenth century they possessed a great number of houses in this island.

566{{anchor|notecr566}}. the foure ordres. The four principal orders of Mendicant Friars. See note on the Vision, l. 116.

721{{anchor|notecr721}}. harkne at Herdforthe. This appears to be an allusion to some event which had recently occurred among the Franciscans at Hertford, or at Hereford: if the latter, perhaps they had been active in the persecution of Walter Brut. See below, l. 1309.

745{{anchor|notecr745}}. than ther lefte in Lucifere. Than there existed in Lucifer, before his fall. See before, the note on l. 681 of the Vision.

771{{anchor|notecr771}}. couuen. Probably an error of the old printed edition for connen.

869{{anchor|notecr869}}. lath. Perhaps an error of the printer of the first edition for lay.

911{{anchor|notecr911}}. Matth. vii, 15.

913{{anchor|notecr913}}. werwolves. People who had the power of turning themselves into, or were turned into, wolves. This fearful superstition, which is very ancient, was extremely prevalent in the middle ages. In French they were called Loup-garous. The history of a personage of this kind forms the subject of the Lai de Bisclaveret, by Marie de France. Sir Frederick Madden has published a very remarkable Early-English metrical romance on the subject of "William and the Werwolf." See on this superstition Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, pp. 620-622.

954{{anchor|notecr954}}. Golias. There is perhaps here an allusion to the famous satire on the Monkish orders entitled Apocalypsis Goliæ, printed among the poems of Walter Mapes.

967{{anchor|notecr967}}. the kynrede of Caym. In the popular belief of the middle ages, hob-goblins and evil spirits (which haunted the wilds and the waters) literally, and bad men figuratively, were represented as being descended from the first murderer, Cain. In Old-English poetry, Caymes kyn is a common epithet for very wicked people. In the Anglo-Saxon romance of Beowulf, the Grendel is said to be of "Cain's kin."

1051{{anchor|notecr1051}}. wytnes on Wyclif. In the persecutions to which Wycliffe was subjected for his opinions in 1382, his most violent opponents were the Mendicants. He died in 1384, quietly at his living of Lutterworth.

1189{{anchor|notecr1189}}. a lymytoure. See before, the note on l. 14615 of the Vision.

1178{{anchor|notecr1178}}. stumlen in tales. An allusion to the idle and superstitious tales with which the monks filled their sermons, in place of simple and sound doctrine.

1309{{anchor|notecr1309}}. Water Brut. Walter Brut (or Bright) was a native of Herefordshire, and was prosecuted by the Bishop of Hereford for heresy in 1393. A long account of his defence will be found in Foxe's Acts and Monuments.

1401{{anchor|notecr1401}}. Hildegare. I suppose this refers to St. Hildegardis, a nun who flourished in the middle of the twelfth century, and who was celebrated among the Roman Catholics as a prophetess. Her prophecies are not uncommon in manuscripts, and they have been printed. Those which relate to the future corruptions in the monkish orders are given in Foxe's Acts and Monuments, book vi, and in other works.