[183]. ‘Go ye and tell agen to Jon those things that ye have herd and seen. Blind men seen, crokide goen, mesels ben maad clene, defe men heren,’ &c. (Matt. xi., Wicklyffe.)
[184]. Pilgrims to Rome were ‘Romers;’ whence such an entry as ‘Cristiana la Romere’ (H.R.) Piers Plowman in ‘Passus IV.’ speaks, within eight lines, of ‘religious romares’ and ‘Rome-runners.’
[185]. Capgrave, under date 1293, says: ‘In the xxii. yere was Celestius the Fifte, Pope, take fro’ his hous, for he was a ankir.’ This Celestius at once passed a law that a Pope might resign, and instantly gave it up, returning to his old life again.
[186]. The Hundred Rolls contain ‘Geoffrey Halve Knit’ and ‘Nicholas Halve Knycht.’ They would seem to have arrived at some half stage toward chivalric rank.
[187]. Swyan, in Morte Arthure, slays Child-Chatelain, and
‘The swyers swyre-bane (neck-bone) he swappes in sondre.’
[188]. An ordinance of Edward III. declares that ‘men of arms, hoblers’ and archers (gentz darmes, hobelers et archers) chosen to go in the king’s service out of England, shall be at the king’s wages from the day that they depart out of the counties where they were chosen, till their return.’ (Stat. Realm, vol. i. p. 301.) Of the hobby itself, too, we have mention. Thus a list of the royal stud at Eltham, in the seventeenth year of Henry VIII., includes ‘coursers, 30; young horses, 8; barbary horses, 4; stallions, 8; hobbyes and geldings, 12.’ (Collection of Ordinances, p. 200.)
[189]. In the Life of Hugh of Lincoln mention is made of ‘Marchadeus princeps Rutariorum’ (p. 264). See the glossary, however, from which I have derived much of the above.
[190]. In the Morte Arthure mention is made of a youth named ‘Chastelayne, a chylde of the Kynges chambyre.’
[191]. Such names as ‘Alice Suckling’ (ff.), or ‘William Firstling,’ (ditto)—both terms familiarised to us by the Authorised Version—belong, seemingly, to the same class.