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.
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