101. _Yeman_, yeoman. 'As a title of service, it denoted a servant of the
next degree above a _garson_ or groom.... The title of _yeoman_ was given
in a secondary sense to people of middling rank not in service. The
appropriation of the word to signify a small landholder is more
modern.'--Tyrwhitt. In ed. 1532, this paragraph is headed--'The Squyers
yoman,' so that _he_ (in this line) means the Squire, as we should
naturally suppose from the context. Tyrwhitt, indeed, objects that 'Chaucer
would never have given the son an attendant, when the father had none'; but
he overlooks the fact that both the squire and the squire's man were
necessarily servants to the knight, who, in this way, really had _two_
servants; just as, in the note to l. 74, I have shewn that he had _three_
horses. Warton, Strutt, and Todd all take this view of the matter, as might
be expected. For further information as to the status of a _yeoman_, see
Blackstone; Spelman's Glossary, s. v. _Socman_; Strutt, Manners and
Customs, iii. 16; the Glossary to the Babees Book, ed. Furnivall;
Waterhous, Comment. on Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, ed. 1663, p.
391; &c.
_na-mo_, no more (in number). In M. E., _mo_ relates to number, but _more_
to size; usually, but not always; see l. 808.
102. _him liste_, it pleased him. _liste_ is the past tense; _list_, it
pleaseth, is the present. See note on l. 37.