NOTE: to vol. i. p. ix. I am informed that it appears, from a charter in
the British Museum, that one Galfridus de Chaucere is a witness to a grant
of land to Hatfield Broad Oak Priory, co. Essex, about A.D. 1300. This
shews that the poet was not the first of his surname to bear the name of
Geoffrey.
ROM. ROSE, 923. _Turke bowes_, Turkish bows. The form _Turke_ can hardly be
right, as the adjective is required. The original copy probably had
'Turk_is_,' with the _is_ written as a contraction; this would easily be
misread as 'Turk_e_,' i. e. as if the contraction stood for e. The French
text has _ars turquois_, as the reader can see.
Cotgrave gives: 'Arc turquois, _the Turkish long-bow_.' But the Turkish
long-bow was short, as compared with the English. Strutt speaks of his
seeing the Turkish ambassador shoot; this was in the year 1800. 'The bow he
used was much shorter than those belonging to the English archers; and his
arrows were of the bolt kind, with round heads made of wood'; Sports and
Pastimes, bk. ii. c. i. § 17. Cf. 'with bowes turkoys,' Percy Folio MS.,
ed. Hales and Furnivall, ii. 458.