MSS. Harl. 541, fol. 210, and Egerton 1995, about 1480. Sub-title
_Edyllys be_. _Edyllys_ may be the O. E. _æthele_, German _edel_,
meaning _noble_; but the sentence is then incomplete. Ends “Quod
Whytyng.” Whether he was author or scribe I do not know, more probably
the latter. I have kept the rhyme in this version, because it is at once
shorter and more interesting than the other.
p. 16. _Seven Arts._ The quadrivium: arithmetic, music, geometry,
astronomy; and the trivium: grammar, rhetoric, logic.
p. 16. _When Gabriel ... meet._ It is interesting to note that a
medieval writer connected courtesy with the worship of Mary, even
although he includes no precepts which touch upon what we call chivalry
to-day.
p. 16. _Villainy._ The French equivalent of churlishness; what Russell
calls “simple conditions.”
p. 17. _Beginning ... think._ This kind of rhyme, not uncommon in the
fifteenth century, seems to indicate a pronunciation as in the cockney
_nothink_.
p. 17. _Mess._ Here _food_, but sometimes _table_ (Latin _mensa_), and
again _group of people at a table_, as used still in the expression
“officers’ mess.”
p. 17. _Fault._ Text: that thy salt holds—which the rhyme shows to be
corrupt.
p. 18. _Work._ Text: keep—changed for the rhyme.
p. 18. _Fingers_, _i.e._, not with thy knife? Or has a negative been
omitted?
p. 19. _No drop be seen._ So Chaucer’s _Prioress_. See _Introduction_,
p. xvi.
p. 19. _Behind no man’s back._ There was perhaps originally an idea of
greed, or, it may be, of possible tampering with the drink, behind the
prohibition.
p. 20. _Jill._ From Gillian, once a common name for women.
p. 20. _The same._ Text: in same (German _zusammen_) together.
p. 21. _Cumbered with no fiends._ This fear was very real in the Middle
Ages, and was fostered by such stories as _Robert the Devil_, _Sir
Gowther_, and ballads of supernatural beings.