Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

And wissede the ful ofte
What Dowel was to mene,
And counsailede the, for Cristes sake,
No creature to bygyle,
Nother to lye nor to lacke,
Ne lere that is defendid,
Ne to spille speche,
As to speke an ydel;
And no tyme to tene,
Ne trywe thyng to teenen;
Lowe the to lyve forth
In the lawe of holy churche,
Thenne dost thow wel, withoute drede,
Ho can do bet no forse.
Clerkes that connen al, ich hope,
Thei con do bettere;
Ac hit suffuseth to be saved,
And to be suche as ich tauhte:
Ac for to lovye and lene,
And lyve wel and byleyve,
Ys y-calid _Caritas_,
Kynde-love in English,
And that is Dobet, yf eny suche be,
A blessed man that helpeth,
And pees be and pacience,
And povre withoute defaute.
_Beatius est dare quam petere._
As catel and kynde witt
Encombre ful menye,
Woo is hym that hem weldeth,
Bote he hym wel dispeyne.
_Scientes et non facientes variis flagellis
vapulabunt._
Ac comunliche connynge
And unkynde rychesse,
As lorels to be lordes,
And lewede men techeres,
And holy churche horen help,
Averous and coveytous,
Droweth up Dowel,
And destruyeth Dobest.
Ac grace is a gras therfore
To don hem eft growe;
Ac grace groweth nat,
Til God wil gynne reyne,
And wokie thorwe goode werkes
Wikkede hertes;
Ac er suche a wil wol wexe,
God hymself worcheth,
And send forth seint espirit
To don love sprynge.
_Spiritus ubi vult spirat, etc._
So grace withoute grace
Of God and of good werkes,
May nat bee, bee thow siker,
Thauh we bid evere.
Cleregie cometh bote of siht,
And kynd witt of sterres,
As to be bore other bygete
In suche constellacion
That wit wexeth therof,
And othere wordes bothe.
_Vultus hujus sæculi sunt subjecti vultibus
coelestibus._
So grace is a gyfte of God,
And kynde witt a chaunce,
And cleregie and connyng of kynde
Wittes techynge;
And yut is cleregie to comende
Fore Cristes love more,
Than eny connynge of kynde witt,
Bote cleregie hit rewele.
For Moyses wutnesseth that God wrot
In stoon with hus fynger,
Lawe of love owre Lorde wrot,
Long ere Crist were;
And Crist cam and confermede,
And holy-churche made,
And in sond a sygne wrot,
And seide to the Jewes,
'That seeth hym synneles,
Cesse nat, ich hote,
To stryke with stoon other with staf
This strompett to dethe.'
_Qui vestrum sine peccato est, etc._
For-thi ich consaily alle Cristene
Cleregie to honoure, etc.

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 [Greek: poiêtês] (from [Greek: poiein]), 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:--

God seyth hymself, as wryten we fynde,
That whenne the blynde ledeth the blynde,
Into the dyche they fallen boo,
For they ne sen whare by to go.
So faren prestes now by dawe,
They beth blynde in Goddes lawe, etc.
_MS. Cotton. Claud._ A. II.

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:--

Dieus dist, et c'est tout verité,
Qe si l'un voegle soit mené
D'un autre voegle, tresbucher
Falt ambedeux en la fossée.
C'est un essample comparé
As fols curetz, qui sanz curer
Ne voient pas le droit sentier,
Dont font les autres forsvoier,
Qui sont après leur trace alé.
Car fol errant ne puet quider,
Ne cil comment nous puet saner,
Qui mesmes est au mort naufré.
_MS. in the possession of Mr. J. Russell Smith._

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:--

Des fols curetz auci y a,
Qui sur sa cure demourra
Non pour curer, mais q'il sa vie
Endroit le corps plus easera.
Car lors ou il bargaignera
Du seculiere marchandie,
Dont sa richesce multeplie;
Ou il se donne à leccherie,
Du quoy son corps delitera;
Ou il se prent à venerie,
Qant duist chanter sa letanie,
Au bois le goupil huera.

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--

Et dou Riche qui _tant poon
Englouti_ et tant bon poisson,
Tante piéche de venison,
Et but bon vin par grant delit, &c.
_Roman de Mahommet_, l. 301.

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:--

Les riches conteront
Des biens qu'il aront
En ce siecle conquis.
Cil qui petit ara,
De petit contera
Au Roy de paradis.
Qui vit en povreté,
Sans point d'iniquité,
Moult ara grant richesse
Es cieux, en paradis,
O dieux et ses amis
Seront joyeux et aise.

7961. Whitaker's text reads here:--

Thus Porfirie and Plato,
And poetes menye,
Lykneth in here logyk
The leeste fowel oute;
And whether hii be saf other nat saf
The sothe wot not clergie,
Ne of Sortes ne of Salamon
No scripture can telle,
Wether thei be in helle other in hevene,
Other Aristotle the wise.

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:--

Adest ei bajulus cui nomen Gnato,
Præcedebat logicum gressu fatigato,
Dorso ferens sarcinam ventre tensus lato,
Plenam vestro dogmate, o _Sortes et Plato_.

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--

And ete meny sondry metes,
Mortrews and poddynges,
Braun and blod of the goos,
Bacon and colhopes.

The second Trin. Coll. MS. has--

And sette many sundry metis,
Mortreux and puddynges,
Braun and blood of gees,
Bacoun and colopis.

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 INTRODUCTION.

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:--

Ne be thi winpil nevere so jelu ne so stroutende,
Ne thi faire tail so long ne so trailende,
That tu ne schalt at evin al kuttid bilevin,
And tou schalt to bedde gon so nakid as tou were [borin].
_MS. Cotton. Cleop. C._ VI, fol. 22, r^o.

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:--

Et quant elle son lit fait a,
Sa dame apiele, si se couche
Nue en chemise en la couche;
C'onques en trestoute sa vie
La biele, blonde, l'escavie,
Ne volt demostrer sa char nue.
La vielle en est au lit venue,
Puis li a dit: 'Dame, j'esgart
Une chose, se Dex me gart,
Dont je sui molt esmervillie
C'onques ne vous vi despoillie,
Et si vous ai vij. ans gardée;
Molt vous ai souvent esgardée
Que vo chemise ne sachiés!'
_Rom. de la Viol._ l. 577.

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):--

Juvenal saith of poverte merily:
The poore man, whan he goth by the way,
Beforn the theves he may sing and play.
_Poverte is hateful good_; and, as I gesse,
A ful gret _bringer out of besinesse_;
A _gret amender_ eke _of sapience_,
To him that taketh it in patience.
Poverte is this although it seme elenge,
_Possession that no wight wol challenge._
Poverte ful often, whan a man is low,
Maketh his God and eke himself to know:
Poverte a spectakel is, as thinketh me,
Thurgh which he may his veray frendes see.
And therfore, sire, sin that I you not greve,
Of my poverte no more me repreve.

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,

Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.

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, Persones Tale, p. 40.

9766. Psal. xcvi, 7; iv, 3.

9828. _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. Matth. xviii, 3.

9934. 1 Corinth. xiii, 4.

9946. 1 Corinth, xiii, 12.

9957. _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--

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. Psal. vi, 7.

10009. Psal. l, 19.

10062. Matth. vi, 16.

10069. _Edmond and Edward._ St. Edmund the martyr, king of East Anglia, and king Edward the Confessor.

10124. Psal. iv, 9.

10159. _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. _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. _Hadde a bird._ This incident is not found in the common lives of St. Antony.

10187. _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. _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. Whitaker's text here adds a passage relating to Tobias:--

Marie Magdalene
By mores levede and dewes;
Love and leel byleyve
Heeld lyf and soule togedere.
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. Job vi, 5.

10270. 2 Corinth, ix, 9.

10303. These sentences appear to be quotations from the fathers of the Latin Church.

10322. _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:--

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. _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):--

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. _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. _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:--

Nam male devotus quidam baptismate lotus,
Plenus perfidia vixit in ecclesia.
. . . . . .
Nam cum transisset Pater illius urbis, et isset
In coelum subito corpore disposito,
Tunc exaltari magus hic et pontificari
Affectans avide; se tamen hæc pavide
Dixit facturum, nisi sciret non nociturum
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. John xvi, 24.

10481, 10486. Matth. v, 13.

10499. _Ellevene holy men._ The eleven apostles who remained after the apostasy of Judas and the crucifixion of their Lord.

10550. _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,--

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. Matth. xxii, 4.

10581. Mark xvi, 15.

10585. _So manye prelates._ 10699. _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. John x, 11.

10599. Matth. xx, 4, 7.

10606. Matth. vii, 7.

10617. Galat. vi, 14.

10632. _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:--

Nummis in hac curia non est qui non vacet;
_Crux_ placet, rotunditas, et albedo placet.

10637. _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. _Whan Constantyn._ The Christian church began first to be endowed with wealth and power under the emperor Constantine the Great.

10649. Luke i, 52.

10695-10699. Instead of these lines, Whitaker's text has the following:--

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. Isai. iii, 7.

10721. Malach. iii, 10.

10733. 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. John xi, 43.

10787. _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. Psal. xxxvi, 24.

10891. Matth. xii, 32.

11000. Luke i, 38.

11023. Matth. ix, 12. Mark ii, 17. Luke v, 31.

11033. Matth. xxvi, 37.

11044. Matth. xi, 18.

11075. Matth. xxi, 13.

11121. Matth. xviii, 7.

11238. Matth. xxvii, 46, and Mark xv, 34.

11300. Rom. iv, 13.

11322. John i, 29 and 36.

11396. Matth. xx, 40.

11518, 11520. _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. John xii, 32.

11708. _tu fabricator omnium._ This was one of the hymns of the catholic church.

11866. Luke xiii, 27.

11883. 1 Corinth. xiii, 1.

11894. Matth. vii, 21.

11998. _Thre thynges._ This proverb is frequently quoted by the satirical and facetious writers of the middle ages. Thus in Chaucer (C. T. 5860):--

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:--

Fumus, et mulier, et stillicidia,
Expellunt hominem a domo propria.

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

Fumée, pluye, et femme sans raison,
Chassent l'homme de sa maison.

12040. 2 Corinth. xii, 9.

12097. _to be dubbed._ These and the following lines contain a continued allusion to the ceremonies of knighthood and tournaments.

12106. Psal. cxvii, 26.

12211. Matth. xxvii, 54.

12232, 12244. _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, 12418, 12420. _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):--

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. _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. Psal. xxix, 6.

12566. Matth. xiv, 28.

12599. _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. Psal. xxiii, 7, 9.

12645, 12669, 12676. _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. _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:--

Sathanas huere syre
Seyde on is sawe,
Gobelyn made is gerner
Of gromene mawe.

12679. _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. _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:--

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. _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. Matth. v, 38.

12781. Matth. v, 17.

12801. _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. Psal. vii, 16.

12840. Psal. l, 6.

12876. 2 Corinth. xii, 4.

12886. Psal. cxlii, 2.

12896. _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:--

Calle up _Astarot_ and Anaballe,
To gyf us counselle in this case.

12937. Psal. lxxxiv, 11.

12943. Psal. cxxxii, 1.

13222. 1 Sam. xviii, 7.

13274. Luke xxiv, 46.

13317. John xx, 29.

13375. _Veni creator spiritus._ The first line of the hymn at vespers, on the feast of Pentecost.

13412. 1 Corinth. xii, 4.

13550. Cato, Distich. 14, lib. ii:--

Esto forti animo cum sis damnatus inique;
Nemo diu gaudet qui judice vincit iniquo.

13789. _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. _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. Matth. v, 45.

13855. Rom. xii, 19; Hebr. x, 30.

14142. _Kynde cessede._ The lines which follow contain an allusion to the dissipation of manners which followed the pestilence.

14191, 14196. _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. _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:--

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. _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. _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. Psal. cxlvi, 4.

14444. _wage menne to werre._ This is a curious account of the composition of an army in the fourteenth century.

14482. Exod. xx, 17.

14511. _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, 14617. _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:"--

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.

------

NOTES TO THE CREED.

65. _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. _a Carm._ 95. _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. _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. _Robartes men._ See before the notes on the Vision, ll. 88 and ll. 3410.

155. _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. _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. _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. _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. _euelles._ Perhaps for _evel-les_, _i. e._ without evil.

534. _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. _the foure ordres._ The four principal orders of Mendicant Friars. See note on the Vision, l. 116.

721. _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. _than ther lefte in Lucifere._ Than there existed in Lucifer, before his fall. See before, the note on l. 681 of the Vision.

771. _couuen_. Probably an error of the old printed edition for _connen_.

869. _lath._ Perhaps an error of the printer of the first edition for _lay_.

911. Matth. vii, 15.

913. _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. _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. _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. _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. _a lymytoure._ See before, the note on l. 14615 of the Vision.

1178. _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. _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. _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.

* * * * *

GLOSSARY.

[The figures in the following Glossary refer to the _page_ of the text.
Words preceded by a +, occur only in the CREED. A.S. and A.N.
distinguish the two different languages of which our own is composed,
Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman.]

A.