1804. Kissing was an ordinary form of salutation.
1810. It was usual, I believe, to use a form of deprecation of this sort in
reply to praise. The sense is--'but I am aware that I have defects, and may
God amend them.'
1816. _curats_, parish clergy; cf. note to l. 1722.
1820. Cf. 'thou shalt catch men'; Luke, v. 10; 'fishers of men,' Matt. iv.
19; Rom. Rose, (E. version), 7492.
1824. 'For (the sake of the) holy Trinity.' _Seint-e_ is feminine.
1825. _pissemyre_, ant. Cf. 'as angry as a wasp,' in Heywood's Proverbs.
1832. _Ie vous dy_, I tell you. A common phrase; see King Alisaunder, ed.
Weber, l. 79; Rom. of the Rose, 7408 (in vol. i. p. 254).
1834. _ire_ (Lat. _ira_) is one of the seven deadly sins; hence the friar's
sermon against it, in ll. 2005-2088.
1842. 'But I hope no animal is ever killed on my account.' A strong hint
that he always expected some special provision to be made for him.
1845. Cf. John, iv. 34; Job, xxiii. 12.
1853. _toun_, village; or, precincts of this farm-house.
1857. Visions of saints being carried to heaven are not uncommon. Bede
relates one, of Saint Earcongota; Eccl. Hist. bk. iii. c. 8.
1859. _fermerer_, the friar who had charge of the infirmary. Put for
_enfermerer_, from O. Fr. _enfermerier_ (Godefroy). So also _fermorie_, an
infirmary, in P. Pl. B. xiii. 108.
1862. _maken hir Iubilee_, keep their jubilee; i. e. having served fifty
years in the convent, they have obtained certain privileges, one of which
was to go about alone; see note to l. 1740. Tyrwhitt refers us to Ducange,
s. v. _Sempectæ_.
1864. _trikling_, so E. Hn.; Cm. _trynkelynge_ (probably by error); rest
_trilling_. Cf. B. 1864.
1866. 'Nothing but a thanksgiving would have been appropriate for [335] a
child dying in infancy, of whose translation to paradise the friar pretends
that he had seen a vision'; Bell.
1872. _burel_ (Pt. Hl. _borel_) _folk_, lay folk, the laity. 'The term
seems to have arisen from the material of their clothing, which was not
used by the clergy'; Wright. Cf. _borel_, in D. 356; _borel men_, i. e.
laymen, in B. 3145; and _borel clerkes_, lay clerks, learned laymen, in P.
Plowman, B. x. 286.
1877. See Luke, xvi. 19, 20.
1880. In the margin of E., 'Melius est animam saginare quam corpus.' Jean
de Meun, in his Testament, 346, says of misers: 'Amegrient leurs ames, plus
que leurs cors n'engressent.'
1881. See 1 Tim. vi. 8.
1885. See Exod. xxxiv. 28.
1890. See 1 Kings, xix. 8.
1894. See Levit. x. 9.
1906. _mendinants_, mendicant friars. Tyrwhitt has _mendiants_, but, in his
notes, admits that _mendinants_ is the right reading, as he found the word
to be 'constantly so spelled in the Stat. 12 Rich. II. capp. 7, 8, 9, 10.'
The same spelling occurs repeatedly in P. Plowman; see note to P. Pl. C.
xvi. 3. See _Mendiener_, to beg, in Godefroy's O. Fr. Dictionary.
1911. 'The thridde deceyt of thise ordris is that thei passen othere in
preyeris, bothe for tyme thei preyen and for multitude of hem'; Wyclif's
Works, ed. Matthew, p. 317.
1915-7. See note to C. 505; p. 278.
1923. See Matt. v. 3. _by freres_, (1922), concerning friars. Certainly,
there is no 'text' to this effect; but the friar trusted to find it _in a
maner glose_, in some kind of comment on the text.
1926. An allusion to _possessioners_; see note to l. 1722.
1929. _Iovinian._ I think this is the same Jovinian as is mentioned in D.
675; for Chaucer frequently quotes the treatise by Jerome against this
heretic. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 30,
refers in a footnote to 'Jovinian, _the enemy of fasts and of celibacy_,
who was persecuted and insulted by the furious Jerome.' The other Jovinian
was a fabulous Roman emperor, who was awhile deposed, like Nebuchadnezzar,
for his pride and luxury, as related in the Gesta Romanorum, cap. 59 (or
chapter 23 in the English version).
_walkinge as a swan_, i. e. with slow and stately gait. Jerome (Contra
Iovin. i. 40) calls Jovinian 'iste formosus monachus, crassus, nitidus, et
_quasi sponsus_ semper _incedens_.'