For further remarks about this Tale, see vol. iii. p. 452.
It is principally directed against the Frere; see the description of him in
the Prologue, A. 208.
1710. Holderness is an extremely flat district; it lies at the S. E. angle
of Yorkshire, between Hull, Driffield, Bridlington and Spurn Point; see the
Holderness Glossary, E. D. S. 1877. We find that Chaucer makes no attempt
here, as in the Reeve's Tale, to imitate the Yorkshire dialect.
1712. _to preche._ The friars were popular preachers of the middle ages.
They were to live by begging, and were therefore often called the Mendicant
Orders; see l. 1912, and the notes to A. 208, 209. The friar of our story
was a _Carmelite_; see note to l. 2116.
1717. _trentals._ A _trental_ (from Low Lat. _trentale_, O. F. _trentel_)
was an office of thirty masses, to be said on so many consecutive days, for
the benefit of souls in purgatory. It also meant, as here, the sum paid for
the same to the priest or friar. See Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 299,
374; ed. Matthew (E. E. T. S.) pp. 211, 516; and the poem entitled St.
Gregory's Trental, in Religious, Political, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall,
p. 83.
1722. _possessioners._ This term seems to have been applied (1) to the
regular orders of monks who possessed landed property, and (2) to the
beneficed clergy. I think there is here particular reference to the latter,
as indicated by the occurrence of _preest_ in l. 1727, _curat_ in 1816, and
_viker_ and _persone_ in l. 2008. The friars, on the contrary, were
supposed to have no endowments, but to subsist entirely upon alms; they
contrived, however, to evade this restriction, and in Pierce the Plowman's
Crede, there is a description of a Dominican convent built with
considerable splendour. I take the expression 'Thanked be god' in l. 1723
to be a parenthentical remark made by the Somnour who tells the story, as
it is hardly consistent with the views of the friars. As to the perpetual
jealousies between the friars and the possessioners, see P. Plowman, B. v.
144.
1728. It was usual (as said in note to l. 1717) to sing the thirty masses
on thirty consecutive days, as Chaucer here remarks. But the friar says
they are better when 'hastily y-songe'; and it would appear [332] that the
friars used occasionally to sing all the thirty masses in one day, and so
save a soul from twenty-nine days of purgatory; cf. ll. 1729, 1732. In
English Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 8, we have an example of this. The
wardens are there directed to summon the Minorite Friars to say the dirge,
'and _on the morwe_ to seie a _trent_ of masses atte same freres.'
In Jack Upland, § 13, we find: 'Why make ye [freres] men beleeue that your
golden trentall sung of you, to take therefore ten shillings, or at least
fiue shillings, woll bring souls out of hell, or out of purgatorie?'
1730. _oules._ The M. E. forms _oule_, _owel_, _owul_, as well as A. S.
_awul_, _awel_, are various spellings of E. _awl_, which see in the New
Eng. Dict. Hence _oules_ means _awls_ or piercing instruments. In the Life
of St. Katherine, l. 2178, the tormentors torture the saint with 'eawles of
irne,' i. e. iron awls. In Horstmann's South-English Legendary (E. E. T.
S.), St. Blase is tormented with 'oules kene,' which tore his flesh as when
men comb wool (p. 487, l. 84); hence he became the patron saint of
wool-combers. Similar tortures were applied by fiends in the medieval
descriptions of hell. See Ancren Riwle, p. 212; St. Brandan, ed. Wright,
pp. 22, 48.
'There are the furies tossing damnèd souls
On burning forks.'
Marlowe, Faustus, Act v. sc. 4.
1734. _qui cum patre._ 'This is part of the formula with which prayers and
sermons are still sometimes concluded in the Church of England.'--Bell. In
a sermon for Ascension Day, in Morris's O. E. Homilies, ii. 115, we have at
the end an allusion, in English, to Christ, after which follows:--'qui cum
patre et spiritu sancto uiuit et regnat per omnia secula seculorum.' Such
was the usual formula.
1740. The friars often begged in pairs; in this way, each was a check upon
the other as regarded the things thus obtained. In Jack Upland, § 23, we
find the friars are asked:--'What betokeneth that ye goe tweine and tweine
togither?' Langland tells us how he met two friars; see P. Plowman, C. xi.
8.
1741. _tables_, writing tablets. In Horman's Vulgaria, leaf 81, we
read:--'Tables be made of leues of yuery, boxe, cyprus, and other stouffe,
daubed with waxe to wrytte on.' And again, in the same:--'Poyntellis of
yron, and poyntyllis of syluer, bras, boon, or stoone.' This is a survival
of the use of the Roman waxed tablet and _stilus_.
1743. Jack Upland (§ 20) asks the friar:--'Why writest thou hir names in
thy tables that yeueth thee mony?' The usual reason was, that the donors
might be prayed for; see l. 1745. Cf. l. 1752.
1745. _Ascaunces_, as if, as though, as if to promise. In G. 838, q.v., it
means 'you might suppose that,' or 'possibly.' In Troilus, i. 205, it means
'as if to say'; Boccaccio's Italian has _quasi dicesse_. It also occurs in
Troilus, i. 292; Lydgate, Fall of Princes, fol. 136 b (Tyrwhitt); [333]
Tale of Beryn, 1797; Palladius on Husbandry, vi. 39; Sidney's Arcadia, ed.
1622, p. 162; and in Gascoigne's Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 113, where the
marginal note has 'as who should say.' See the New Eng. Dictionary, where
the etymology is said to be unknown.
I have since found that it is a hybrid compound. The first part of it is E.
_as_, used superflously and tautologically; the latter part of it is the
O. F. _quanses_, 'as if,' first given in a dictionary by Godefroy in 1889,
with six examples, and three other spellings, viz. _qanses_, _quainses_,
and _queinsi_. Godefroy refers us to Romania, xviii. 152, and to Foerster's
edition of _Cliges_, note to l. 4553. Kilian gives Mid. Du. '_quantsuys_,
quasi'; borrowed from O. French, without any prefix.
1746. Nothing came amiss to the friars. They begged for 'corn, monee,
chese,' &c.; see Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, p. 304. And in Skelton's
Colin Clout, l. 842, we read of the friars:--
'Some to gather chese;
Loth they are to lese
Eyther corne or malte;
Somtyme meale and salte,
Somtyme a bacon-flycke,' &c.
1747. _Goddes_ here translated the French expression _de Dieu_, meaning
'sent from God.' Tyrwhitt says that the true meaning of _de Dieu_ 'is
explained by M. de la Monnoye in a note upon the _Contes de D. B. Periers_,
t. ii. p. 107. _Belle serrure de Dieu_: Expression du petit peuple, qui
raporte pieusement tout à Dieu. Rien n'est plus commun dans la bouche des
bonnes vieilles, que ces espèces d'Hébraïsmes: _Il m'en conte un bel écu de
Dieu; Il ne me reste que ce pauvre enfant de Dieu. Donnez-moi une bénite
aumône de Dieu._ See _goddes halfpeny_ in l. 1749. (The explanation by
Speght, and in Cowel's Interpreter, s. v. _kichell_, seems to be, as
Tyrwhitt says, an invention.)
_kechil_, a little cake. The form _kechell_ occurs in the Ormulum, l. 8662;
answering to the early A. S. _coecil_, occurring as a gloss to _tortum_ in
the Epinal Glossary, 993; different from A. S. _c[=i]cel_ (for _c[=y]cel_),
given as _cicel_ in Bosworth's Dictionary. The cognate M. H. G. word is
_küechel[=i]n_ (Schade), O. H. G. _chuochel[=i]n_, double dimin. from O. H.
G. _kuocho_ (G. _Kuchen_), a cake; see _Kuchen_ in Kluge. The E. _cake_ is
a related word, but with a difference in vowel-gradation.
_trip_, 'a morsel.' 'Les _tripes_ d'un fagot, the smallest sticks in a
faggot'; Cotgrave.
1749. _masse-peny_, a penny for saying a mass. Jack Upland, § 19,
says:--'Freer, whan thou receiuest a peny for to say a masse, whether
sellest thou Gods body for that peny, or thy prayer, or els thy travell?'
1751. '_dagon_, a slip, or piece. It is found in Chaucer, Berners, and
Steevens' Supp. to Dugdale, ii. ap. 370, applied in each instance to a
blanket'; Halliwell. Cf. M. E. _dagge_, a strip of cloth.
1755. _hostes man_, servant to the guests at the convent. _Hoste_ seems
here to mean 'guest,' which is one of the meanings of O. F. _hoste_ (see
[334] Cotgrave). This sense is rare in M. E., but it occurs in the Romance
of Merlin, ed. Wheatley, iii. 684, last line but one. Because he 'bare the
bag,' this attendant on the friars was nicknamed Iscariot; cf. John, xii.
6. 'Thei leden with hem a Scarioth, stolen fro is eldris by thefte, to
robbe pore men bi beggynge'; Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, p. 49.
1768. _the gode man_, the goodman, or master of the house. MS. Hl. has
_housbond-man_, and MSS. Cp. Ln. _bonde man_; all with the same sense.
_place_, house; cf. note to B. 1910; p. 184.
1770. _Deus hic_, God be here; 'the ordinary formula of benediction on
entering a house'; Wright.
1775. A fine realistic touch; the friar made himself quite at home.
1778. _go walked_, gone on a walk. For _go walked_, as in all the seven
MSS., Tyrwhitt substitutes _y-walked_, suppressing this characteristic
idiom. See note to C. 406; p. 272.
1792. _glose_, gloss, interpretation, as distinguished from the text.