623. _Somnour_, summoner; an officer employed to summon delinquents to
appear in ecclesiastical courts; now called an apparitor. 'The
ecclesiastical courts ... determined all causes matrimonial and
testamentary.... They had besides to enforce the payment of tithes [52] and
church dues, and were charged with disciplinary power for punishment of
adultery, fornication, perjury, and other vices which did not come under
the common law. The reputation of the _summoner_ is enough to show how
abuses pervaded the action of these courts. Prof. Stubbs has summed up the
case concerning them in his Constitutional History, iii. 373.'--Wyclif's
Works, ed. Matthew, note at p. 514. For further information as to the
summoner's character, see the Frere's Tale, D. 1299-1374.
624. _cherubinnes face._ H. Stephens, Apologie for Herodotus, i. c. 30,
quotes the same thought from a French epigram--'Nos grands docteurs _au
cherubin visage_.'--T. Observe that _cherubin_ (put for _cherubim_) is a
plural form. 'As the pl. was popularly much better known than the singular
(e. g. in the Te Deum), the Romanic forms were all fashioned on _cherubin_,
viz. Ital. _cherubino_, Span. _querubin_, Port. _querubin_, _cherubin_, F.
_cherubin_'; New English Dictionary. Cherubs were generally painted red, a
fact which became proverbial, as here. Cotgrave has: '_Rouge comme un
cherubin_, red-faced, cherubin-faced, having a fierie facies like a
Cherubin.' Mrs. Jameson, in her Sacred and Legendary Art, has unluckily
made the cherubim _blue_, and the seraphim _red_; the contrary was the
accepted rule.
625. _sawcefleem_ or _sawsfleem_, having a red pimpled face; lit. afflicted
with pimples, &c., supposed to be caused by too much salt phlegm (_salsum
phlegma_) in the constitution. The four humours of the blood, and the four
consequent temperaments, are constantly referred to in various ways by
early writers--by Chaucer as much as by any. Tyrwhitt quotes from an O.
French book on physic (in MS. Bodley 761)--'Oignement magistrel pur
_sausefleme_ et pur chescune manere de _roigne_,' where _roigne_ signifies
any scorbutic eruption. 'So (he adds) in the Thousand Notable Things, B. i.
70--"A _sawsfleame_ or red pimpled face is helped with this medicine
following:"--two of the ingredients are _quicksilver_ and _brimstone_. In
another place, B. ii. 20, _oyle of tartar_ is said "to take away cleane all
spots, freckles, and filthy _wheales_."' He also quotes, in his Glossary,
from MS. Bodley 2463--'unguentum contra _salsum flegma_, scabiem, &c.'
_Flewme_ in the Prompt. Parv. answers to Lat. _phlegma_. See the long note
by J. Addis in N. and Q. 4 S. iv. 64; Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 169,
l. 777. 'The Greke word that he vsed was [Greek: exanthêmata], that is,
little pimples or pushes, soche as, of cholere and salse flegme, budden out
in the noses and faces of many persones, and are called the Saphires and
Rubies of the Tauerne.'--Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, _Diogenes_, §
6: [_printed_ false flegme _in_ ed. 1877.] See l. 420.