685. _vernicle_, a small copy of the 'vernicle' at Rome. _Vernicle_ is 'a
diminutive of _Veronike_ (Veronica), a copy in miniature of the picture of
Christ, which is supposed to have been miraculously imprinted upon a
handkerchief preserved in the church of St. Peter at Rome.... It was usual
for persons returning from pilgrimages to bring with them certain tokens of
the several places which they had visited; and therefore the Pardoner, who
is just arrived from Rome, is represented with a _vernicle sowed on his
cappe_.'--Tyrwhitt. See the description of a pilgrim in Piers Plowman, ed.
Skeat, B. v. 530, and the note. The legend was invented to explain the
name. First the name of Bernice, taken from the Acts, was assigned to the
woman who was cured by Christ of an issue of blood. Next, Bernice,
otherwise Veronica, was (wrongly) explained as meaning _vera icon_ (i. e.
true likeness), which was assigned as the name of a handkerchief on which
the features of Christ were miraculously impressed. Copies of this portrait
were called _Veronicae_ or _Veroniculae_, in English _vernicles_, and were
obtainable by pilgrims to Rome. There was also a later St. Veronica, who
died in 1497, after Chaucer's time, and whose day is Jan. 13.
See Legends of the Holy Rood, ed. Morris, pp. 170, 171; Mrs. Jameson's
Sacred and Legendary Art, ii. 269; Lady Eastlake's History of our Lord, i.
41; Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. pt. i. p. 438; and the picture of the
vernicle in Chambers, Book of Days, i. 101.
687. _Bret-ful of pardon_, brim-full (top-full, full to the top) of
indulgences. Cf. Swed. _bräddfull_, brimful; from _brädd_, a brim. See A.
2164; Ho. of Fame, 2123.
692. _fro Berwik_, from Berwick to Ware (in Hertfordshire), from North to
South of England. See the similar phrase--'From Barwick to Dover, three
hundred miles over'--in Pegge's Kenticisms (E. D. S.), p. 70.