Geoffrey Chaucer

“ Writers, 1888, iii. 167, where we read that the Apocalypse of Golias and the confession of Golias 'have by constant tradition been ascribed to him [Walter Map] ; never to any other writer.' Golias is a medieval spelling of the Goliath of scripture, and occurs in Chaucer, Man of Lawes Tale, B. 934. In several authors of the thirteenth century, quoted by Du Cange, the goliardi are classed with the joculatores et buffones, and it is very likely that the word goliardus was, originally, quite independent of Golias, which was only connected with it by way of jest. ”

“ In D. 1112, the phrase is 'not worth a hen.' Tyrwhitt says, 'I do not see much force in the epithet pulled'; but adds, in his Glossary—'I have been told since, that a hen whose feathers are pulled, or plucked off, will not lay any eggs.' Becon speaks of a 'polled hen,' i. e. pulled hen, as one unable to fly; Works, p. 533; Parker Soc. It is only one of the numerous old phrases for expressing that a thing is of small value. ”

“ Christopher was looked upon with particular reverence among the middle and lower classes; and was supposed to possess the power of shielding the person who looked on it from hidden dangers'; note in Wright's Chaucer. This belief is clearly shewn by a passage in Wright's History of Caricature. It is of so early an origin that we already meet with it in Anglo-Saxon in Cockayne's Shrine, p. 77, where we are told that St. Christopher 'prayed God that every one who has any relic of him should never be condemned in his sins, and that God's anger should never come upon him' ”

“ This saying of Plato is taken from Boethius, De Consolatione, bk. iii. pr. 12, which Chaucer translates: 'Thou hast lerned by the sentence of Plato, that nedes the wordes moten be cosines to the thinges of which they speken'; see vol. ii. p. 90, l. 151. In Le Roman de la Rose, 7131, Jean de Meun says that Plato tells us, speech was given us to express our wishes and thoughts, and proceeds to argue that men ought to use coarse language. Chaucer was thinking of this singular argument. ”

“ Of these cells some were altogether subject to their respective abbies, who appointed their officers, and received their revenues; while others consisted of a stated number of monks, who had a prior sent them from the abby, and who paid an annual pension as an acknowledgment of their subjection; but, in other matters, acted as an independent body, and received the rest of their revenues for their own use. These priories or cells were of the same order with the abbies on whom they depended. See Tanner, Pref. Not. Monast. p. xxvii.'—Todd, Illustrations of Chaucer, p.326. ”

“ Ianglere, loud talker.
goliardeys, a ribald jester, one who gained his living by following rich men's tables, and telling tales and making sport for the guests. Tyrwhitt says, 'This jovial sect seems to have been so called from Golias, the real or assumed name of a man of wit, towards the end of the twelfth century, who wrote the Apocalypsis Goliæ, and other pieces in burlesque Latin rhymes, some which have been falsely [?] attributed to Walter Map.' But it would appear that Golias is the sole invention of Walter Map, the probable author of the 'Golias' poems. ”

“ Constanti [n] us Afer, a native of Carthage, and afterwards a monk of Monte Cassino, was one of the founders of the school of Salerno—he lived at the end of the eleventh century. Bernardus Gordonius, professor of medicine at Montpellier, appears to have been Chaucer's contemporary. John Gatisden was a distinguished physician of Oxford in the earlier half of the fourteenth century. Gilbertyn is supposed by Warton to be the celebrated Gilbertus Anglicus. The names of Hippocrates and Galen were, in the middle ages, always (or nearly always) spelt Ypocras and Galienus.'—Wright. ”

“ Frensh. Mr. Cutts (Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, p. 58) says very justly:—'She spoke French correctly, though with an accent which savoured of the Benedictine convent at Stratford-le-Bow, where she had been educated, rather than of Paris.' There is nothing to shew that Chaucer here speaks slightingly of the French spoken by the Prioress, though this view is commonly adopted by newspaper-writers who know only this one line of Chaucer, and cannot forbear to use it in jest. Even Tyrwhitt and Wright have thoughtlessly given currency to this idea ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here bord = board, table, so that the phrase signifies 'he had been placed at the head of the dais, or table of state.' Warton, in his Hist. of Eng. Poetry, ed. 1840, ii. 209 (ed. 1871, ii. 373) , aptly cites a passage from Gower which is quite explicit as to the sense of the phrase. See Gower, Conf. Amantis, bk. viii. ed. Pauli, iii. 299. We there read that a knight was honoured by a king, by being set at the head of the middle table in the hall. ”

“ Upon it depended the drawing out of a man's horoscope, which represented the aspect of the heavens at some given critical moment. The moment, in the present case, is that for making images. It was believed that images of men and animals could be made of certain substances and at certain times, and could be so treated as to cause good or evil to a patient, by means of magical and planetary influences. See Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, lib. ii. capp. 35-47. The sense is—'He knew well how to choose a fortunate ascendant for treating images, to be used as charms to help the patient.' ”

“ Each principal part of the body, as the brain, heart, liver, stomach, &c., could be 'distempered,' and such distemperance could be either 'simple' or 'compound.' Thus a simple distemperature of the brain might be 'an excess of heat' ”

“ E. besmutted.
habergeoun, though etymologically a diminutive of hauberk, is often used as synonymous with it. 'It was a defence of an inferior description to the hauberk; but when the introduction of plate-armour, in the reign of Edward III, had supplied more convenient and effectual defences for the legs and thighs, the long skirt of the hauberk became superfluous; from that period the habergeon alone appears to have been worn.'—Way, note to Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 220. ”

“ Strutt (Manners and Customs, iii. 14) explains that a vavasour was 'a tenant by knight's service, who did not hold immediately of the king in capite, but of some mesne lord, which excluded him from the dignity of baron by tenure.' Tyrwhitt says 'it should be understood to mean the whole class of middling landholders.' See Lacroix, Military Life of Middle Ages, p. 9. Spelt favasour in King Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 3827. A. F. uauassur; Laws of Will. I. c. 20. Lit. 'vassal of vassals'; Low Lat. vassus vassorum. ”

“ The older preterites of this verb are heolp, help, halp. seke, sick, rimes to seke, seek; this apparent repetition is only allowed when the repeated word is used in two different senses.
seke, pl. of seek, A. S. sēoc, sick, ill. For hem, see n. to l. 175.
19. Bifel, it befell. seson (saesun) , time. on a day, one day.
20. Tabard. Of this word Speght gives the following account in his Glossary to Chaucer:—'Tabard—a jaquet or sleveless coate, worne in times past by noblemen in the warres, but now only by heraults (heralds) , and is called theyre "coate of armes in servise." ”

“ At mete. Tyrwhitt has acutely pointed out how Chaucer, throughout this passage, merely reproduces a passage in his favourite book, viz. Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Méon, l. 13612, &c., which may be thus translated:—'and takes good care not to wet her fingers up to the joints in broth, nor to have her lips anointed with soups, or garlic, or fat flesh, nor to heap up too many or too large morsels and put them in her mouth. ”

“ The friar was popular with the mercantile classes on account of his varied attainments and experience. 'Who else so welcome at the houses of men to whom scientific skill and information, scanty as they might be, were yet of no inconsiderable service and attraction. ”

“ Cower (Conf. Amant., ed. Pauli, iii. 372) mentions 'A paire of bedes blacke as sable,' with 'gaudees.' See Gaudia and Precula in Ducange. Gaudee originally meant a prayer beginning with Gaudete, whence the name; see Gaudez in Cotgrave.
160. broche = brooch, signified, (1) a pin; (2) a breast-pin; (3) a buckle or clasp; (4) a jewel or ornament. It was an ornament common to both sexes. The brooch seems to have been made in the shape of a capital A, surmounted by a crown. See the figure of a silver-gilt brooch in the shape of an A in the Glossary to Fairholt's Costume in England. ”

“ Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, 1488. Furnivall's Temporary Preface, p. 98, gives the Lat. form as lodmannus, whence lodmannagium, pilotage, examples of which are given. Sometimes, lodesman meant any guide or conductor, as in Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 9027; Monk of Evesham, ed. Arber, p. 106. M. E. lode is the A. S. lād, a way, a course, the sb. whence the verb to lead is derived. It is itself derived from A. S. līðan, to travel. ”

“ Combats at sea are more destructive and obstinate than upon land'; Froissart's Chron. bk. i. c. 50. See Minot's Poems, ed. Hall, p. 16. In Wright's History of Caricature, p. 204, is an anecdote of the way in which the defeat of the French at Sluys was at last revealed to the king of France, Philippe VI., by the court-jester, who alone dared to communicate the news. ”

“ All this has ceased to be familiar, and the allusion has lost its point. 'We enjoin that a priest be not a hunter, nor a hawker, nor a dicer'; Canons of King Edgar, translated; no. 64. See my note to P. Plowman, C. vi. 157.
179. recchelees (in MS. E.) means careless, regardless of rule; but 'a careless monk' is not necessarily 'a monk out of his cloister.' But the reading cloisterless (in MS. Harl.) solves the difficulty; being a coined word, Chaucer goes on to explain it in l. ”

“ Diseases were supposed to be caused by an undue excess of some one quality; and the mixture of prevalent qualities in a man's body determined his complexion or temperament. Thus the sanguine man was thought to be hot and moist ”

“ Tyrwhitt, indeed, objects that 'Chaucer would never have given the son an attendant, when the father had none'; but he overlooks the fact that both the squire and the squire's man were necessarily servants to the knight, who, in this way, really had two servants; just as, in the note to l. 74, I have shewn that he had three horses. Warton, Strutt, and Todd all take this view of the matter, as might be expected. For further information as to the status of a yeoman, see Blackstone; Spelman's Glossary, s. v. Socman; Strutt, Manners and Customs, iii. 16; the Glossary to the Babees Book, ed. ”

“ This passage, says Tyrwhitt, 'is attributed by Gratian (Decretal. P. ii. Cau. xvi. q. l. c. viii.) to a pope Eugenius: Sicut piscis sine aqua caret vita, ita sine monasterio monachus.' Joinville says, 'The Scriptures do say that a monk cannot live out of his cloister without falling into deadly sins, any more than a fish can live out of water without dying.' Cf. Piers Plowman, B. x. 292; and my note.
Wyclif (Works, ed. Matthew) , p. ”

“ A pair here means 'a set.' 'A peire of bedis eke she bere'; Rom. Rose, 7372.
'Sumtyme with a portas, sumtyme with a payre of bedes.'
⁠Bale's King John, p. 27; Camden Soc.
gauded al with grene, 'having the gawdies green. Some were of silver gilt.'—T. The gawdies or gaudees were the larger beads in the set. 'One payre of beads of silver with riche gaudeys'; Monast. Anglicanum, viii. 1206; qu. by Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. i. 403. 'Unum par de Iett [jet] gaudyett with sylver'; Nottingham Records, iii. 188. 'A peyre bedys of jeete [get] , gaudied with corall'; Bury Wills, p. ”

“ Chaucer, in his description of the parson, contrasts the piety and industry of the secular clergy with the wickedness and laziness of the religious orders or monks. See Dryden's 'Character of a Good Parson,' and Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village'; also Wyclif, ed. Matthew, p. 179.
482. parisshens, parishioners; in which -er is a later suffix.
485. y-preved, proved (to be) . ofte sythes, often-times; from A. S. sīð, a time. ”

“ We find actual mention of a vessel called the Maudelayne belonging to the port of Dartmouth, in the years 1379 and 1386; see Essays on Chaucer, p. 484. See also N. & Q. 6 S. xii. 47.
The Doctour.
415. astronomye, (really) astrology. See Saunders on Chaucer, p. 111; Warton, Hist. E. Poet. (1840) , ii. 202.
415, 416. kepte, watched. The houres are the astrological hours. He carefully watched for a favourable star in the ascendant. 'A great portion of the medical science of the middle ages depended upon astrological and other superstitious observances.'—Wright. ”