[389] The spelling has been modernized, a few old words changed, and the division into verses omitted.
[390] Chronicon Angliae, by a monk of St Albans. Rolls ed.
[391] Harleian MS. No. 1568, “Chronicle of England to A.D. 1419.” (Printed with additions at the St Albans press about 1484.)
[392] Skeat, whose great edition of ‘The Vision of Piers the Ploughman,’ has been brought out by the Early English Text Society, thinks that the ironical reference (Passus XIII. 248) to the pope sending a salve for the pestilence applies particularly to the “Fourth Pestilence” of 1375 and 1376, which was the pestis tertia of some chronicles.
[393] Flux and fever from famine are alone mentioned in the poems of John of Bridlington, which cover the period from the Black Death to the reign of Richard II.
[394] Egerton MS. No. 2572, Sloane MS. 443 (“xiv. cent.”), as well as several copies of the 15th century.
[395] Lansdowne MS. 285, fol. 220.
[396] Mr Warner identifies him with the person who invented “Sir John Mandeville” and the travels of Sir John. See an article in the Quarterly Review, April, 1891.
[397] Sloane MS. (British Museum) No. 2276, fol. 191-199.
[398] ‘A passing gode lityll boke necessarye and behouefull azenst the Pestilence.’ British Museum, case 31, e. 13, 4to, twelve leaves. The MS. begins as follows: “Here begynneth a lytell boke necessary and behouefull azens the pestylence.”