15. Danger, in the Provencal Courts of Love, was the
allegorical personification of the husband; and Disdain suitably
represents the lover’s corresponding difficulty from the side of
the lady.
16. In The Knight’s Tale, Emily’s yellow hair is braided in a
tress, or plait, that hung a yard long behind her back; so that,
both as regards colour and fashion, a singular resemblance
seems to have existed between the female taste of 1369 and that
of 1869.
17. In an old monkish story — reproduced by Boccaccio, and
from him by La Fontaine in the Tale called “Les Oies de Frere
Philippe” — a young man is brought up without sight or
knowledge of women, and, when he sees them on a visit to the
city, he is told that they are geese.
18. Tabernacle: A shrine or canopy of stone, supported by
pillars.
19. Mister folk: handicraftsmen, or tradesmen, who have
learned “mysteries.”
20. The loves “Of Queen Annelida and False Arcite” formed the
subject of a short unfinished poem by Chaucer, which was
afterwards worked up into The Knight’s Tale.
21. Blue was the colour of truth. See note 36 to the Squire’s
Tale.