'His crouper heeng al full off belles.'
'Vincent of Beauvais, speaking of the Knights Templars, and their gorgeous
horse-caparisons, says they have--in pectoralibus campanulas infixas magnum
emittentes sonitum'; Hist. lib. xxx. c. 85 (cited by Warton, Hist. E. P. i.
167). See B. 3984; and Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 13; also Englische Studien,
iii. 105.
172. _Ther as_ = where that. _keper_, principal, head, i. e. prior.
_celle_, cell; a 'cell' was a small monastery or nunnery, dependent on a
larger one. '_Celle_, a religious house, subordinate to some great [21]
abby. Of these _cells_ some were altogether subject to their respective
abbies, who appointed their officers, and received their revenues; while
others consisted of a stated number of monks, who had a prior sent them
from the abby, and who paid an annual pension as an acknowledgment of their
subjection; but, in other matters, acted as an independent body, and
received the rest of their revenues for their own use. These _priories_ or
_cells_ were of the same order with the abbies on whom they depended. See
Tanner, Pref. Not. Monast. p. xxvii.'--Todd, Illustrations of Chaucer,
p.326. Cf. note to l. 670, and especially the note to D. 2259.
173. _The reule_ (rule) _of seint Maure_ (St. Maur) and that of _seint
Beneit_ (St. Benet or Benedict) were the oldest forms of monastic
discipline in the Romish Church. St. Maur (Jan. 15) was a disciple of St.
Benet (Dec. 4), who founded the Benedictine order, and died about A.D. 542.
174. Note that _streit_, mod. E. _strait_, A. F. _estreit_, from Lat.
_strictus_, is quite distinct from mod. E. _straight_, of A. S. origin.
175. The Harl. MS. reads, 'This ilke monk leet forby hem pace' (_error for_
leet hem forby him pace?), 'This same monk let them pass by him
unobserved.' _hem_ refers to the rules of St. Maur and St. Benet, which
were too _streit_ (strict) for this 'lord' or superior of the house, who
preferred a milder sort of discipline. _Forby_ is still used in Scotland
for _by_ or _past_. _pace_, pass by, remain in abeyance; cf. _pace_, pass
on, proceed, in l. 36. _hem_, them; originally dat. pl. of _he_.
176. _space_, course (Lat. _spatium_); 'and held his course in conformity
with the new order of things.'
177. _yaf not of_, gave not for, valued not. _yaf_ is the pt. t. of _yeven_
or _yiven_, to give.
_a pulled hen_, lit. a plucked hen; hence, the value of a hen without its
feathers; see l. 652. In D. 1112, the phrase is 'not worth a _hen_.'
Tyrwhitt says, 'I do not see much force in the epithet _pulled_'; but adds,
in his Glossary--'I have been told since, that a hen whose feathers are
pulled, or plucked off, will not lay any eggs.' Becon speaks of a 'polled
hen,' i. e. pulled hen, as one unable to fly; Works, p. 533; Parker Soc. It
is only one of the numerous old phrases for expressing that a thing is of
small value. See l. 182. I may add that _pulled_, in the sense of 'plucked
off the feathers,' occurs in the Manciple's Tale; H. 304. And see Troil. v.
1546.
_text_, remark in writing; the word was used of any written statement that
was frequently quoted. The allusion is to the legend of Nimrod, 'the mighty
hunter' (Gen. x. 9), which described him as a very bad man. 'Mikel he cuth
[much he knew] o sin and scham'; Cursor Mundi, l. 2202. It was he (it was
said) who built the tower of Babel, and introduced idolatry and
fire-worship. All this has ceased to be familiar, and the allusion has lost
its point. 'We enjoin that a priest be not a hunter, nor a hawker, nor a
dicer'; Canons of King Edgar, translated; no. 64. See my note to P.
Plowman, C. vi. 157. [22]
179. _recchelees_ (in MS. E.) means careless, regardless of rule; but 'a
careless monk' is not necessarily 'a monk out of his cloister.' But the
reading _cloisterless_ (in MS. Harl.) solves the difficulty; being _a
coined word_, Chaucer goes on to explain it in l. 181. See the quotation
from Jehan de Meung in the next note.
179-81. This passage, says Tyrwhitt, 'is attributed by Gratian (_Decretal._
P. ii. Cau. xvi. q. l. c. viii.) to a pope Eugenius: _Sicut piscis sine
aqua caret vita, ita sine monasterio monachus._' Joinville says, 'The
Scriptures do say that a monk cannot live out of his cloister without
falling into deadly sins, any more than a fish can live out of water
without dying.' Cf. Piers Plowman, B. x. 292; and my note.
Wyclif (Works, ed. Matthew), p. 449, has a similar remark:--'For, as they
seyn that groundiden [_founded_] these cloystris, thes men myghten no more
dwelle out ther-of than fizs myghte dwelle out of water, for vertu that
they han ther-ynne.' The simile is very old; in The Academy, Nov. 29, 1890,
Prof. Albert Cook traced it back to Sozomen, Eccl. Hist. bk. i. c. 13
(Migne, Patr. Graec. 67. 898):--[Greek: tous men gar ichthuas elege tên
hugran ousian trephein, monachois de kosmon pherein tên erêmon. episês te
tous men xêras aptomenous to zên apolimpanein, tous de tên monastikên
semnotêta apolluein tois astesi prosiontas.] And in The Academy, Dec. 6,
1890, Mr. H. Ellershaw, of Durham, shewed that it occurs still earlier, in
the Life of St. Anthony (c. 85) attributed to St. Athanasius, not later
than A.D. 373:--[Greek: hôsper hoi ichthues enchronizontes têi xêrai gêi
teleutôsin; houtôs hoi monachoi bradunontes meth' humôn kai par' humin
endiatribontes ekluontai.]
Moreover, the poet was thinking of a passage in Le Testament de Jehan de
Meung, ed. Méon, l. 1166:--
'Qui les voldra trover, si les quiere en leur cloistre ...
Car ne prisent le munde la montance d'une oistre.'
i. e. 'whoever would find them, let him seek them in their cloister; for
they do not prize the world at the value of an oyster.' Chaucer turns this
passage just the other way about.