Chapter VI: Mediæval Towns (3)

[Cardinal Wolsey, after the Earl's death, intimated his wish to have the books of the Earl's chapel, which a note speaks of as fine service books.--P. 314.]

[245] Edited by Mr. Gough Nichols for the Camden Society.

[246] Richard Burré, a wealthy yeoman and "ffarmer of the parsonage of Sowntyng, called the Temple, which I holde of the howse of St. Jonys," in 19 Henry VIII. wills that Sir Robert Bechton, "my chaplen, syng ffor my soule by the span of ix. yers;" and further requires an obit for his soul for eleven years in Sompting Church.--("Notes on Wills," by M. A. Lower, "Sussex Archæological Collections," iii. p. 112.)

[247] "Dialogue of Heresies," iii. c. 12.

[248] See note on previous page, "the altar-cloths in my lord's closet and my ladie's."

[249] Of the inventories to be found in wills, we will give only two, of the chapels of country gentlemen. Rudulph Adirlay, Esq. of Colwick ("Testamenta Eboracensia," p. 30), Nottinghamshire, A.D. 1429, leaves to Alan de Cranwill, his chaplain, a little missal and another book, and to Elizabeth his wife "the chalice, vestment, with two candelabra of laton, and the little missal, with all other ornaments belonging to my chapel." In the inventories of the will of John Smith, Esq., of Blackmore, Essex, A.D. 1543, occur: "In the chappell chamber--Item a long setle yoyned. In the chappell--Item one aulter of yoyner's worke. Item a table with two leaves of the passion gilt. Item a long setle of waynscott. Item a bell hanging over the chapel. Chappell stuff: Copes and vestments thre. Aulter fronts foure. Corporall case one; and dyvers peces of silk necessary for cusshyons v. Thomas Smith (to have) as moche as wyll serve his chappell, the resydue to be solde by myn executours." The plate and candlesticks of the chapel are not specially mentioned; they are probably included among the plate which is otherwise disposed of, and "the xiiiij latyn candlestyckes of dyvers sorts," elsewhere mentioned.--_Essex Archæological Society's Transactions_, vol. iii. p. 60.

[250] See the Rev. W. Stubbs's learned and laborious "Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum," which gives lists of the suffragan (as well as the diocesan) bishops of the Church of England.

[251] "Richmondshire Wills," p. 34.

[252] "Test. Ebor.," 220.

[253] Ibid., p. 39.

[254] In a pontifical of the middle of the fifteenth century, in the British Museum, (Egerton, 1067) at f. 19, is an illumination at the beginning of the service for ordering an ostiary, in which the act is represented. The bishop, habited in a green chasuble and white mitre, is delivering the keys to the clerk, who is habited in a surplice over a black cassock, and is tonsured. At f. 35 of the same MS. is a pretty little picture, showing the ordination of priests; and at f. 44 v., of the consecration of bishops. Other episcopal acts are illustrated in the same MS.: confirmation at f. 12; dedication of a church, f. 100; consecration of an altar, f. 120; benediction of a cemetery, f. 149 v.; consecration of chalice and paten, f. 163; reconciling penitents, f. 182 and f. 186 v.; the "feet-washing," f. 186.

[255] Outer short cloak.

[256] Was not sufficiently a man of the world to be fit for a secular occupation.

[257] Obtain.

[258] To pursue his studies.

[259] For another good illustration of a clerk of time of Richard II. see the illumination of that king's coronation in the frontispiece of the MS. Royal, 14, E iv., where he seems to be in attendance on one of the bishops. He is habited in blue cassock, red liripipe, black purse, with penner and inkhorn.

[260] "Test. Ebor.," vol. ii. p. 98.

[261] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 38.

[262] "Test. Ebor.," vol. ii. p. 143.

[263] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 149.

[264] Archdeacon Hale's "Precedents in Criminal Causes," p. 113.

[265] From the duty of carrying holy water, mentioned here and in other extracts, the clerk derived the name of _aqua bajulus_, by which he is often called, _e.g._, in many of the places in Archdeacon Hale's "Precedents in Criminal Causes."

[266] Ibid., p. 122.

[267] York Fabric Rolls, p. 257.

[268] Ibid., p. 248.

[269] York Fabric Rolls, p. 265.

[270] Ibid., p. 266.

[271] Ibid., p. 248.

[272] Bohn's Edition, ii. 388.

[273] Hair.

[274] Complexion.

[275] Neatly.

[276] _Watchet_, a kind of cloth.

[277] Small twigs or trees.

[278] Musical instruments.

[279] As the parish clerk of St. Mary, York, used to go to the people's houses with holy water on Sundays.

[280] Grafted lies.

[281] As debtors flee to sanctuary at Westminster, and live on what they have borrowed, and set their creditors at defiance.

[282] Them.

[283] Their.

[284] Know.

[285] Great and little.

[286] Gave.

[287] Angry.

[288] Difficult nor proud.

[289] Smite, rebuke.

[290] Scrupulous.

[291] Cardinal Otho, the Papal legate in England in the time of Henry III., was a deacon (Matthew Paris, Sub. Ann. 1237); Cardinal Pandulph, in King John's time, was a sub-deacon (R. Wendover, Sub. Ann. 1212).

[292] There is a very fine drawing of an archbishop in _pontificalibus_ of the latter part of the thirteenth century in the MS. Royal, 2 A. f. 219 v.

[293] "Church of our Fathers," i. 319.

[294] In a Spanish Book of Hours (Add. 1819-3), at f. 86 v., is a representation of an ecclesiastic in a similar robe of dark purple with a hood, he wears a cardinal's hat and holds a papal tiara in his hand.

[295] Engraved by Dr. Rock, ii. 97.

[296] Engraved in the _Archæological Journal_, vii. 17 and 19.

[297] A plain straight staff is sometimes seen in illuminations being put into a bishop's grave; such staves have been actually found in the coffins of bishops.

[298] The alb was often of coloured materials. We find coloured albs in the mediæval inventories. In Louandre's "Arts Somptuaires," vol. i. xi. siecle, is a picture of the canons of St. Martin of Tours in blue albs. Their costume is altogether worth notice.

[299] For another ecclesiastical procession which shows very clearly the costume of the various orders of clergy, see Achille Jubinal's "Anciennes Tapisseries," plate ii.

[300] _Incisis_, cut and slashed so as to show the lining.

[301] Monumenta Franciscana, lxxxix. Master of the Rolls' publications.

[302] York Fabric Rolls, p. 243.

[303] This word, which will frequently occur, means a kind of ornamental dagger, which was worn hanging at the girdle in front by civilians, and knights when out of armour. The instructions to parish priests, already quoted, says--

In honeste clothes thow muste gon
Baselard ny bawdryke were thou non.

[304] The honorary title of Sir was given to priests down to a late period. A law of Canute declared a priest to rank with the second order of thanes--_i.e._, with the landed gentry. "By the laws, armorial, civil, and of arms, a priest in his place in civil conversation is always before any esquire, as being a knight's fellow by his holy orders, and the third of the three Sirs which only were in request of old (no baron, viscount, earl, nor marquis being then in use), to wit, Sir King, Sir Knight, and Sir Priest.... But afterwards Sir in English was restrained to these four,--Sir Knight, Sir Priest, and Sir Graduate, and, in common speech, Sir Esquire; so always, since distinction of titles were, Sir Priest was ever the second."--A Decacordon of Quodlibetical Questions concerning Religion and State, quoted in Knight's Shakespeare, Vol. I. of Comedies, note to Sc. I, Act i. of "Merry Wives of Windsor." In Shakespeare's characters we have _Sir Hugh Evans_ and _Sir Oliver Martext_, and, at a later period still, "Sir John" was the popular name for a priest. Piers Ploughman (Vision XI. 304) calls them "God's knights,"

And also in the Psalter says David to overskippers,
_Psallite Deo nostro, psallite; quoniam rex terre
Deus Israel; psallite sapienter_.
The Bishop shall be blamed before God, as I leve [believe]
That crowneth such goddes knightes that conneth nought _sapienter_
Synge ne psalmes rede ne segge a masse of the day.
Ac never neyther is blameless the bisshop ne the chapleyne,
For her either is endited; and that of _ignorancia
Non excusat episcopos, nec idiotes prestes_.

[305] York Fabric Rolls, p. 268.

[306] Described and engraved in the Sussex Archæological Collections, vii. f. 13.

[307] Described and engraved in Mr. Parker's "Domestic Architecture."

[308] Parker's "Domestic Architecture," ii. p. 87.

[309] There are numerous curious examples of fifteenth-century timber window-tracery in the Essex churches.

[310] The deed of settlement of the vicarage of Bulmer, in the year 1425, gives us the description of a parsonage house of similar character. It consisted of one hall with two chambers annexed, the bakehouse, kitchen, and larder-house, one chamber for the vicar's servant, a stable, and a hay-soller (_Soler_, loft), with a competent garden. Ingrave rectory house was a similar house; it is described, in a terrier of 1610, as "a house containing a hall, a parlour, a buttery, two lofts, and a study, also a kitchen, a milk-house, and a house for poultry, a barn, a stable and a hay-house."--_Newcourt_, ii. p. 281.

Ingatestone rectory, in the terrier of 1610, was "a dwelling-house with a hall, a parlour, and a chamber within it; a study newly built by the then parson; a chamber over the parlour, and another within that with a closet; without the dwelling-house a kitchen and two little rooms adjoining to it, and a chamber over them; two little butteries over against the hall, and next them a chamber, and one other chamber over the same; without the kitchen there is a dove-house, and another house built by the then parson; a barn and a stable very ruinous."--_Newcourt_, ii. 348. Here, too, we seem to have an old house with hall in the middle, parlour and chamber at one end and two butteries at the other, in the midst of successive additions.

There is also a description of the rectory house of West Haningfield, Essex, in Newcourt, ii. 309, and of North Bemfleet, ii. 46.

[311] Newcourt's "Repertorum," ii. 97.

[312] Newcourt, ii. 49.

[313] George Darell, A.D. 1432, leaves one book of statutes, containing the statutes of Kings Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV.; one book of law, called "Natura Brevium;" one Portus, and one Par Statutorum Veterum.--_Testamenta Eboracensia_, ii. p. 27.

[314] There are other inventories of the goods of clerics, which will help to throw light upon their domestic economy at different periods, _e.g._, of the vicar of Waghen, A.D. 1462, in the York Wills, ii. 261, and of a chantry priest, A.D. 1542, in the Sussex Archæological Collections, iii. p. 115.

[315] Bohn's Edition, vol. ii. p. 278.

[316] Matthew Paris, vol. i. p. 285 (Bohn's edition).

[317] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 193.

[318] Ibid., vol iii. p. 48.

[319] Numb. x. 9.

[320] Exod. xv. 21.

[321] 1 Sam. xviii. 7.

[322] Jer. xxxi. 4.

[323] Is. v. 12.

[324] 1 Sam. x. 5.

[325] 2 Sam. vi. 5.

[326] Psalm lxviii.

[327] Also a paper read before the London and Middlesex Architectural Society in June, 1871.

[328] The king's minstrel of the last Saxon king is mentioned in Domesday Book as holding lands in Gloucestershire.

[329] In the reign of Henry I., Rayer was the King's Minstrel. Temp. Henry II., it was Galfrid, or Jeffrey. Temp. Richard I., Blondel, of romantic memory. Temp. Henry III., Master Ricard. It was the Harper of Prince Edward (afterwards King Edward I.) who brained the assassin who attempted the Prince's life, when his noble wife Eleanor risked hers to extract the poison from the wound. In Edward I.'s reign we have mention of a King Robert, who may be the impetuous minstrel of the Prince. Temp. Edward II., there occur two: a grant of houses was made to William de Morley, the King's Minstrel, which had been held by his predecessor, John de Boteler. At St. Bride's, Glamorganshire, is the insculpt effigy of a knightly figure, of the date of Edward I., with an inscription to John le Boteler; but there is nothing to identify him with the king of the minstrels. Temp. Richard II., John Camuz was the king of his minstrels. When Henry V. went to France, he took his fifteen minstrels, and Walter Haliday, their Marshal, with him. After this time the chief of the royal minstrels seems to have been styled _Marshal_ instead of King; and in the next reign but one we find a _Sergeant_ of the Minstrels. Temp. Henry VI., Walter Haliday was still Marshal of the Minstrels; and this king issued a commission for _impressing_ boys to supply vacancies in their number. King Edward IV. granted to the said long-lived Walter Haliday, Marshal, and to seven others, a charter for the restoration of a Fraternity or Gild, to be governed by a marshal and two wardens, to regulate the minstrels throughout the realm (except those of Chester). The minstrels of the royal chapel establishment of this king were thirteen in number; some trumpets, some shalms, some small pipes, and other singers. The charter of Edward IV. was renewed by Henry VIII. in 1520, to John Gilman, his then marshal, on whose death Hugh Wodehouse was promoted to the office.

[330] Ellis's "Early English Metrical Romances" (Bohn's edition), p. 287.

[331] From Mr. T. Wright's "Domestic Manners of the English."

[332] Among his nobles.

[333] Their.

[334] Great chamber, answering to our modern drawing-room.

[335] Couches.

[336] For other illustrations of musical instruments see a good representation of Venus playing a rote, with a plectrum in the right hand, pressing the strings with the left, in the Sloane MS. 3,985, f. 44 v. Also a band, consisting of violin, organistrum (like the modern hurdy-gurdy), harp, and dulcimer, in the Harl. MS. 1,527; it represents the feast on the return of the prodigal son. In the Arundel MS. 83, f. 155, is David with a band of instruments of early fourteenth-century date, and other instruments at f. 630. In the early fourteenth-century MS. 28,162, at f. 6 v., David is tuning his harp with a key; at f. 10 v. is Dives faring sumptuously, with carver and cup-bearer, and musicians with lute and pipe.

[337] Mallory's "History of Prince Arthur," vol. i. p. 44.

[338] Viz., by making the sign of the cross upon them.

[339] Edward VI.'s commissioners return a pair of organs in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, which they value at 40_s._, and in the church of St. Peter, Parmentergate, in the same city, a pair of organs which they value at £10 (which would be equal to about £70 or £80 in these days), and soon after we find that 8_d._ were "paied to a carpenter for makyng of a plaunche (a platform of planks) to sette the organs on."

[340] Another, with kettle-drums and trumpets, in the MS. Add. 27,675, f. 13.

[341] A harp with its case about the lower part is in the Add. MS. 18,854, f. 91.

[342] There are casts of these in the Mediæval Court of the Crystal Palace.

[343] "Annales Archæologiques," vol. vi. p. 315.

[344] Ibid., vol. ix. p. 329.

[345] Kettle-drums.

[346] In the account of the minstrel at Kenilworth, subsequently given, he is described as "a squiere minstrel of Middlesex, that travelled the country this summer time."

[347]

"Miri it is in somer's tide
Swainés gin on justing ride."

[348]

"Whanne that April with his shourés sote," &c.
"Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages."

[349] Tedious, irksome.

[350] Lose their.

[351] Renders tedious.

[352] Fontenelle ("Histoire du Théâtre," quoted by Percy) tells us that in France, men, who by the division of the family property had only the half or the fourth part of an old seignorial castle, sometimes went rhyming about the world, and returned to acquire the remainder of their ancestral castle.

[353] In the MS. illuminations of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the messenger is denoted by peculiarities of equipment. He generally bears a spear, and has a very small, round target (or, perhaps, a badge of his lord's arms) at his girdle--_e.g._, in the MS. Add. 11,639 of the close of the thirteenth century, folio 203 v. In the fifteenth century we see messengers carrying letters openly, fastened in the cleft of a split wand, in the MS. of about the same date, Harl. 1,527, folio 1,080, and in the fourteenth century MS. Add. 10,293, folio 25; and in Hans Burgmaier's Der Weise Könige.

[354] It is right to state that one MS. of this statute gives Mareschans instead of Menestrals; but the reading in the text is that preferred by the Record Commission, who have published the whole of the interesting document.

[355] In the romance of Richard Coeur de Lion we read that, after the capture of Acre, he distributed among the "heralds, disours, tabourers, and trompours," who accompanied him, the greater part of the money, jewels, horses, and fine robes which had fallen to his share. We have many accounts of the lavish generosity with which chivalrous lords propitiated the favourable report of the heralds and minstrels, whose good report was fame.

[356] May we infer from the exemption of the jurisdiction of the Duttons, and not of that of the court of Tutbury and the guild of Beverley, that the jurisdiction of the King of the Minstrels over the whole realm was established after the former, and before the latter? The French minstrels were incorporated by charter, and had a king in the year 1330, forty-seven years before Tutbury. In the ordonnance of Edward II., 1315, there is no allusion to such a general jurisdiction.

[357] One of the minstrels of King Edward the Fourth's household (there were thirteen others) was called the _wayte_; it was his duty to "pipe watch." In the romance of "Richard Coeur de Lion," when Richard, with his fleet, has come silently in the night under the walls of Jaffa, which was besieged on the land side by the Saracen army:--

"They looked up to the castel,
They heard no pipe, ne flagel,[A]
They drew em nigh to land,
If they mighten understand,
And they could ne nought espie,
Ne by no voice of minstralcie,
That quick man in the castle were."

And so they continued in uncertainty until the spring of the day, then

"A wait there came, in a kernel,[B]
And piped a nott in a flagel."

And when he recognised King Richard's galleys,

"Then a merrier note he blew,
And piped, 'Seigneurs or sus! or sus!
King Richard is comen to us!'"

[A] Flageolet.

[B] Battlement.

[358] Was offended.

[359] Repent.

[360] Give.

[361] Travel.

[362] Praise.

[363] Introduction to his "Reliques of Early English Poetry."

[364] The close-fitting outer garment worn in the fourteenth century, shown in the engravings on p. 350.

[365] Which Percy supposes to mean "tonsure-wise," like priests and monks.

[366] Percy supposes from this expression that there were inferior orders, as yeomen-minstrels. May we not also infer that there were superior orders, as knight-minstrels, over whom was the king-minstrel? for we are told "he was but a batchelor (whose chivalric signification has no reference to matrimony) yet." We are disposed to believe that this was a real minstrel. Langham tells us that he was dressed "partly as he would himself:" probably, the only things which were not according to his wont, were that my Lord of Leicester may have given him a new coat; that he had a little more capon's grease than usual in his hair; and that he was set to sing "a solemn song, warranted for story, out of King Arthur's Acts," instead of more modern minstrel ware.

[367] Heralds in the fourteenth century bore the arms of their lord on a small scutcheon fastened at the side of their girdle.

[368] "Annales Archæologiques," vii. p. 323.

[369] "Eoten," a giant; "Eotenish," made by or descended from the giants.

[370] The Harl. MS. 603, of the close of the eleventh century, contains a number of military subjects rudely drawn, but conveying suggestions which the artist will be able to interpret and profit by. In the Add. MS. 28,107, of date A.D. 1096, at f. 25 v., is a Goliath; and at f. 1,630 v., a group of soldiers.

[371] _Didde_--did on next his white skin.

[372] _Debate_--contend.

[373] _Cuirbouly_--stamped leather.

[374] _Latoun_--brass.

[375] Compare Tennyson's description of Sir Lancelot, in the "Lady of Shalot."

"His gemmy bridle glittered free,
Like to some branch of stars we see;
Hung in the golden galaxy,
As he rode down to Camelot."

[376] In the MS. Royal, 1,699, is a picture in which are represented a sword and hunting-horn hung over a tomb. The helmet, sword, and shield of Edward the Black Prince still hang over his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral; Henry IV.'s saddle and helmet over his tomb in Westminster Abbey; and in hundreds of parish churches helmets, swords, gauntlets, spurs, &c., still hang over the tombs of mediæval knights.

[377] Probably a bridge with a tower to defend the approach to it.

[378] Couch.

[379] Hewitt's "Ancient Armour," i. p. 349.

[380] The album of Villars de Honnecourt, of the thirteenth century, contains directions for constructing the trebuchet.

[381] Hewitt's "Ancient Armour," i. 361.

[382] For much curious detail on this subject see "The Babee's Book," published by the Early English Text Society.

[383] A cover for a bench.

[384] In illustration of the way in which actual warfare was sometimes treated as if it were a chivalrous trial of skill, take the following anecdote from Froissart; on the occasion when the French had bribed Amery de Puy, the governor, to betray Calais, and fell into the ambush which Edward III. set for them, and the king himself fought under the banner of Sir Walter Murray:--"The Kyng lyht on the Lord Eustace of Rybemount, who was a strong and a hardy knyht; there was a long fyht bytwene hym and the kyng that it was joy to beholde them.... The knight strake the kyng the same day two tymes on his knees; but finally the kynge himself toke hym prisoner, and so he yelded his sword to the kyng and sayd, Sir Knyght, I yeled me as your prisoner, he knewe not as then that it was the kyng." In the evening the king gave a supper in the castle, at which the French prisoners sat as guests; and, "when supper was done and the tables take away, the kyng taryed styll in the hall with his knyghtes and with the Frenchmen, and he was bare-heeded, savyng a chapelet of fyne perles that he ware on his heed. Than the kyng went fro one to another of the Frenchmen.... Than the kyng come to Sir Eustace of Rybamont, and joyously to hym he said, 'Sir Eustace, ye are the knyht in the worlde that I have sene moost valyant assayle his ennemyes and defende hymselfe, nor I never founde knyght that ever gave me so moche ado, body to body, as ye have done this day; wherefore I give you the price above all the knyghtes of my court by ryht sentence.' Then the kyng took the chapelet that was upon his heed, beying bothe faire, goodly, and ryche, and sayd, 'Sir Eustace, I gyve you this chapelet for the best doar in armes in this journey past of either party, and I desire you to bere it this yere for the love of me; say whersover ye come that I dyd give it you; and I quyte you your prison and ransom, and ye shall depart to-morowe if it please you.'"

[385] 2 Samuel ii.

[386] Such as that which took place at Windsor Park in the sixth year of Edward I., for which, according to a document in the Record Office at the Tower (printed in the "Archælogia," vol. xvii. p. 297), it appears that the knights were armed in a tunic and surcoat, a helmet of leather gilt or silvered, with crests of parchment, a wooden shield, and a sword of parchment, silvered and strengthened with whalebone, with gilded hilts.

[387] _i.e._, of the strangers. The challengers are afterwards called the gentlemen within.

[388] For other forms of challenge, and some very romantic challenges at full length, see the Lansdowne MS. 285.

[389] Probably the tilt-house (the shed or tent which they have in the field at one end of the lists).

[390] The Lansdowne MS. says "gentlewomen," an obvious error; it is correctly given as above in the Hastings MS.

[391] Dugdale, in his "History of Warwickshire," gives a curious series of pictures of the famous combat between John Astle and Piers de Massie in the year 1438, showing the various incidents of the combat.

[392] The Harleian MS. No. 69, is a book of certain triumphs, containing proclamations of tournaments, statutes of arms for their regulation, and numerous other documents relating to the subject. From folio 20 and onwards are given pictures of combats; folio 22 v. represents spear-play at the barriers; folio 23, sword-play at the barriers, &c.

[393] In the picture given by Dugdale of the combat between John Astle and Piers de Massie, the combatants are represented each sitting in his chair--a great carvad chair, something like the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey.

[394] Tremouille.

[395] "Oyez!" or perhaps "Ho!"

[396] From Mr. Wright's "Domestic Manners and Customs of the Middle Ages."

[397] "Ancient Cannon in Europe," by Lieut. Brackenbury.

[398] See also Viollet le Duc's "Dictionary of Architecture."

[399] The British Museum does not possess this fine work, but a copy of it is accessible to the public in the Library of the South Kensington Museum.

[400] Afterwards cardinal.

[401] Dun Cow.

[402] "He is so hung round," says Truewit, in Ben Jonson's _Epicoene_, "with pikes, halberds, petronels, calivers, and muskets, that he looks like a justice of peace's hall." Clement Sysley, of Eastbury House, near Barking, bequeathed in his will the "gonnes, pikes, cross-bows, and other weapons, to Thomas Sysley, to go with the house, and remain as standards for ever in Eastbury Hall."

[403] A sketch illustrating their construction may be found in Witsen's "Sheeps Bouw." Appendix, Plate 10.

[404] "History of Commerce."

[405] Sir Harris Nicholas' "History of the British Navy," vol. i. p. 21.

[406] In our own day we see the scorn of trade being rapidly softened down. Many of our commercial houses are almost as important as a department of State, and are conducted in much the same way. The principals of these houses are often considerable landholders besides, have been educated at the public schools and universities, and are frankly received as equals in all societies. On the other hand, the nobility are putting their younger sons into trade. At this moment, we believe, the brother-in-law of a princess of England is in a mercantile house.

[407] _Avarice_, in "Piers Ploughman's Vision," v. 255, says:--

"I have ymade many a knyht both mercer and draper
That payed nevere for his prentishode not a paire of gloves."

[408] Neatly, properly.

[409] Shields, _i.e._ _écus_, French crowns.

[410] Agreement for borrowing money.

[411] Know not his name.

[412] From Mr. Wright's "Domestic Manners and Customs of the Middle Ages."

[413] If.

[414] Boxes.

[415] Sweet ointments.

[416] To give relief.

[417] Engraved in Fisher's Bedfordshire Collections, and in the London and Middlesex Archæological Society's Proceedings for 1870, p. 66.

[418] Take the woodcut on p. 531, from MS. Royal, 15 E. I., f. 436.

[419] Taken.

[420] Like.

[421] N'et, _i.e._ does not eat.

[422] N'is, _i.e._ is not.