3318. 'It was the fashion to wear shoes with the upper leather cut into a
variety of beautiful designs, resembling the tracery of window-heads,
through which the bright colour of the green, blue, or scarlet stocking
beneath was shewn to great advantage';--Rock, Church of our Fathers, ii.
239, with illustrations at p. 240. _Poules windowes_, windows like those in
St. Paul's Cathedral; hence, designs resembling them. Wright conjectures
that there may even be a reference to the rose-window of old St. Paul's;
and he says that examples of such shoes still exist, in the museum of Mr.
C. Roach Smith. Good illustrations of these beautifully cut shoes are given
in Fairholt's Costume, pp. 64, 65, who also notes that 'in Dugdale's view
of old St. Paul's ... the rose-window in the transept is strictly analogous
in design.' The Latin name for such shoes was _calcei fenestrati_, which
see in Ducange. Rock also quotes the phrase _corium fenestratum_ from Pope
Innocent III. Observe the mention of his scarlet hose in the next line. Cf.
note to Rom. of the Rose, 843, in vol. i. p. 423.
3321. _wachet_, a shade of blue. Tyrwhitt wrongly connects it with the town
of _Watchet_, in Somersetshire. But it is French. Littré, s. v. _vaciet_,
gives: 'Couleur d'hyacinthe ou _vaciet_,' colour of the hyacinth, or
_bilberry_ (Lat. _uaccinium_). Roquefort defines _vaciet_ as a shrub which
bears a dark fruit fit for dyeing violet; it is applied, he [102] says,
both to the fruit and the dye; and he calls it _Vaccinium hysginum_.
Phillips says _watchet_ is 'a kind of blew colour.' Todd's Johnson cites
from Milton's Hist. of Muscovia, c. 5, '_watchet_ or sky-coloured cloth';
and the line, 'Who stares, in Germany, at _watchet_ eyes,' tr. of Juvenal,
Sat. xiii, wrongly attributed to Dryden. See examples in Nares from Browne,
Lyly, Drayton, and Taylor: and, in Richardson, from Beaumont and Fletcher,
Hackluyt, Spenser, and Ben Jonson. Cotgrave explains F. _pers_ as 'watchet,
blunket, skie-coloured,' and _couleur perse_ as 'skie-colour, azure-colour,
a blunket, or light blue.' See _Blunket_ in the New E. Dict., and my
article in Philolog. Soc. Trans. Nov. 6, 1885, p. 329. Webster has
'_watchet_ stockings,' The Malcontent, A. iii. sc. 1. Lydgate has
'_watchet_ blewe'; see Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet. (1840), ii. 280.
3322. _poyntes_, tagged laces, as in Shakespeare. MS. Hl. has here a
totally different line, involving the word _gores_ (cf. l. 3237 above),
viz. 'Schapen with goores in the newe get,' i. e. in the new fashion.
3329. Tyrwhitt says:--'The school of Oxford seems to have been in much the
same estimation for its dancing, as that of Stratford for its French'; see
l. 125. He probably meant this satirically; but it may mean the very
opposite, or something nearly so. The Stratford-at-Bow French was excellent
of its kind, but unlike that of France (see note to l. 125); and probably
the Oxford dancing was, likewise, of no mean quality after its kind, having
twenty 'maneres.'
3331. _rubible_; also _ribible_ (4396). Cf. 'where was his fedylle [fiddle]
or hys _ribible_'; Knight de la Tour, cap. 117. See _Ribibe_, _Ribible_ in
Halliwell; The Squire of Low Degree (in Ritson), l. 1071; Warton, Hist.
Eng. Poetry, ii. 194. Also called a _rebeck_, as in Milton. A two-stringed
musical instrument, played with a bow, of Moorish origin; Arab. _rab[=a]b_.
'_Hec vitula_, a rybybe'; Wright's Gloss. 738. 19.
3332. _quinible._ Not a musical instrument, as Tyrwhitt supposed, but a
kind of voice. It is not singing consecutive fifths upon a plain song, as
Mr. Chappell once thought (Pop. Music of the Olden Time, i. 34); but, as
afterwards explained by him in Notes and Queries, 4 S. vi. 117, it refers
to a very high voice. The _quinible_ was an octave higher than the
_treble_; the _quatreble_ was an octave higher than the mean. The _mean_
was intermediate between the _plain-song_ or _tenor_ (so called from its
_holding on_ the notes) and the _treble_. It means 'at the extreme pitch of
the voice.' Skelton miswrites it _quibyble_.
3333. _giterne_, a kind of guitar. 'The gittern and the kit the wand'ring
fiddlers like'; Drayton, Polyolbion, song 4. See note to P. Pl. C. xvi.
208; Prompt. Parv. p. 196.
3337. _squaymous_, squeamish, particular. Tyrwhitt says--'I know not how to
make this sense agree with what follows' (l. 3807). But it is easy to
understand that he was, ordinarily, squeamish, retentive; exceptionally,
far otherwise. In the Knight de la Tour, cap. cxiv, p. 155, there is a
story of a lady who waited on her old husband, and nursed him under most
trying conditions; 'and unnethe there might [103] haue be founde a woman
but atte sum tyme she wolde haue lothed her, or ellys to haue be right
_scoymous_ ta haue do the seruice as thes good lady serued her husbonde
contynuelly.' In a version of the Te Deum, composed about 1400, we
read--'Thou were not _skoymus_ of the maidens wombe'; Maskell, Monumenta
Ritualia, ii. 14[24]. Cf. '_squaymose_, verecundus,' Catholicon;
'_skeymowse_, or _sweymows_ or _queymows_, abhominativus'; Prompt. Parv.
Spelt _squmous_ (badly), Court of Love, l. 332; and _sqymouse_ in Morris's
reprint of it. See _Desdaigneux_ in Cotgrave. 'To be _squamish_, or nice,
_delicias facere_'; Baret's Alvearie. 'They that be subiect to Saturne ...
be not _skoymous_ of foule and stinking clothing'; Batman on Bartholomè,
lib. 8. c. 23. In Weber's Metrical Romances, i. 359, we find:
'Than was the leuedi of the hous
A proude dame and an envieous,
Hokerfulliche missegging,
_Squeymous_ and eke scorning.'
Lay le Freine, ll. 59-62.
These examples quite establish the sense. The derivation is from the rare
A. F. _escoymous_, which occurs in P. Meyer's ed. of Nicole Bozon (Soc. des
Anc. Textes Français), p. 158:--'si il poy mange e beyt poy, lors est
gageous ou _escoymous_,' if he eats and drinks little, then is he delicate
or nice. Robert of Brunne has the spelling _esquaymous_; Handlyng Synne, l.
7249.
3338. _dangerous_, sparing; see the Glossary.
3340. Cutts (Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, p. 219) seems to
think that the clerk went _about the parish_ with his censer, as he
sometimes certainly went about with holy water. Warton, on the other hand,
says that 'on holidays it was his business to carry the censer _about the
church_, and he takes this opportunity of casting unlawful glances on the
handsomest ladies of the parish.' Warton is clearly right here, for there
is an allusion to the ladies coming forward with the usual offering (l.
3350); cf. note to A. 450. And see Persones Tale, l. 407.
3354. _for paramours_, for love's sake: a redundant expression, since _par_
means 'for.' Cf. n. to l. 1155, at p. 67.
3358. _shot-windowe._ Brockett's Northern Glossary gives: '_Shot-window_, a
projecting window, common in old houses'; but this may have been copied
from Horne Tooke, who seems to have guessed at, and misunderstood, the
passage, below, in Gawain Douglas. In the new edition of Jamieson, Mr.
Donaldson defines _Schot_ as 'a window set on hinges and opening like a
shutter,' and explains that, 'in the West of Scotland, a projecting window
is called an _out-shot window_, whereas a _shot-window_ or _shot_ is one
that can be opened or shut like [104] a door or shutter by turning on its
hinges.' It is material to the story that the window here mentioned should
be readily opened and shut. The passage in G. Douglas's tr. of Virgil,
prol. to bk. vii, evidently refers to a window of this character, as the
poet first says:--
'Ane _schot-wyndo_ vnschet a lytill on char,'
i. e. I unshut the shot-window, and left it a little ajar; and he goes on
to say that the weather was so cold that he soon shut it again--
'The _schot_ I clossit, and drew inwart in hy.'
See also ll. 3695, 6 below. In the next line, _upon_ merely means 'in' or
'formed in.'
It is curious that, in Bell's Chaucer, a quotation is given from the Ballad
of _Clerk Saunders_ (Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii.) to shew that
_shot-window_ cannot mean '_shut_ window.' But it does not prove that it
cannot mean 'hinge-shutting window,' as I have shewn the right sense to be.
'Then she has ta'en a crystal wand,
And she has stroken her troth thereon;
She has given it him out at the _shot-window_,
With mony a sad sigh and heavy groan.'
3361. Tyrwhitt absurdly says that ll. 3361, 3362 should be broken into four
short verses, and that _ladý_ (sic) rimes with _be_! In Bell's edition,
they are printed in small type! They are just ordinary lines; and _be_
(pronounced nearly as modern _bay_) certainly never rimed with _lády_--nor
yet with _la-dý_--in Chaucer's time, when the final _y_ was sounded like
the modern _ee_ in _meet_, and would rather have rimed with a word like
_my_. It is a mere whim.
3375. _menes_, intermediate people, go-betweens; see _Mene_, sb., in Gloss.
to P. Plowman, with numerous references. _Brocage_ is the employment of a
'broker' or agent, and so means much the same. See _Brokage_ in New E.
Dict., and _Brocage_ in Gloss. to P. Plowman.
3377. _brokkinge_, with quick regular interruptions, quavering, in a
'broken' manner. See _Brock_ in New E. Dict.
3379. _wafres_, wafers. 'They (F. _gaufres_) are usually sold at fairs, and
are made of a kind of batter poured into an iron instrument, which shuts up
like a pair of snuffers. It is then thrust into the fire, and when it is
with-drawn and opened, the _gaufre_, or wafer, is taken out and eaten
"piping hote out of the glede," as here described.'--Note in Bell's
Chaucer.
3380. _mede_, reward, money; distinct from _meeth_, mead, in l. 3378. The
sense of _mede_ is very amply illustrated in P. Plowman. L. 3380 intimates
that, as she lived in a town, she could spend money at any time.
3382. A side-note, in several MSS., says: 'Unde Ouidius: Ictibus agrestis.'
But the quotation is not from Ovid.
3384. The parish-clerks often took part in the Mystery Plays. The part of
Herod was an important one; cf. Hamlet, iii. 2. 15. [105]
3387. 'I presume this was a service that generally went
unrewarded.'--Wright. It was like 'piping in an ivy-leaf'; see A. 1838.
3389. _ape_, dupe; as in A. 706.