[196] A word used by Chaucer. It signifies a person licensed to preach
and beg within a certain _limit_. There was an order of mendicant
friars.
"Lordings, ther is in Engelond, I gesse, A mersschly land called
Holdernesse, In which there went a lymytour aboute, To preche and eek to
begge, it is no doubte."
CHAUCER'S _Sompnour's Tale_; Works, ed. Bell. ii. 103.
[197] Scrowl.
+ _Of the phisitian, that vsed to write bylles ouer eue._ xxxviii.
+ A certayne phisitian of Italy vsed ouer night to write for sondry
diseasis diuers billes, called resceitz, and to put them in a bag al to
gether. In the morning whan the vrins (as the custome is) were brought
to him, and he [was] desired to showe some remedy, he wolde put his hand
in to the bag, and at al auentures take oute a bille. And in takinge
oute the bille he wolde say to him that came to seke remedye in their
language: _Prega dio te la mandi bona_. That is to saye: Praye God to
sende the a good one.
By this tale ye may se, that miserable is their state whiche fortune
muste helpe and nat reason. Suche a phisitian on a tyme sayde to
Pausanias: Thou aylest nothinge. No, sayde he, I haue nat had to do with
thy phisicke. And an other tyme a frende of his sayde: Syr, ye ought not
to blame that phisitian: for his phisicke dyd you neuer hurte. Thou
sayest trouthe, quod he: for, if I hadde proued his phisicke, I shulde
nat nowe haue been alyue. And ageyne to an other that sayde: Syr, ye be
an olde man, he answered: yea, thou were nat my phisitian. Such maner
[of] checkes are to lyttell for the leude foles, that wyll practise
phisicke, before they knowe what [be]longeth to theyr name.