Derisum patitur, ant lutel so shal he wynne,” etc.
[27] Robert of Gloucester lived in the latter part of the thirteenth century, perhaps surviving into the fourteenth. In addition to his Chronicle of England, he is thought to have written Lives and Legends of the English Saints.
[28] Il milione di Messer Marco Polo, Veneziano. Florence, 1827. Marco Polo d. 1323.
[29] Odoric, a priest of Pordenone in Friuli, who went on Church mission about 1318. His narrative is to be found in the Ramusio Col., 2d Vol. 1574. Carpini (Joannes de Plano), was a Franciscan from near Perugia, who travelled East about 1245. Hakluyt has portions of his narrative: but full text is only in Recueil de Voyages, Vol. IV., by M. D’Avezac.
[30] Messrs. Nicholson and Yule, who are sponsors for the elaborate article in the Br. Ency.
[31] Page 407, chap. viii.
[32] An abbot presided over monasteries—sometimes independent of the bishop—sometimes (in a degree) subject. Priors also had presidence over some religious houses—but theirs was usually a delegated authority. An æsthetic abbot or prior was always building—or always getting new colors for the missal work in the scriptorium: hunting abbots were thinking more of the refectory. At least six religious services were held a day, and always midnight mass. It was easy, but not wholly a life of idleness. A bell summoned to breakfast, and bells to mass. Of a sunny day—monks were teaching boys one side of the cloister—artistic monks working at their missals the other; perhaps under such prior as he of Jorvaulx (Scott’s Ivanhoe) some young monk would be training his hawks or dogs. An interesting abstract of the Rule of the Benedictines may be found under Monachism, Br. Ency., Vol. xvi.
[33] College Statutes of Merton date from 1274; those of University from 1280; and of Balliol from 1282. Paper of George C. Broderick, Nineteenth Century, September, 1882.
[34] The story of the Black Prince meets with revival in our day, by the recent publication of “Le Prince Noir, Poeme du Herault d’Armes Chandos,” edited, translated, etc., by Francisque Michel, F.A.S. Fotheringham: London, 1884. The original MS. is understood to be preserved in the Library of Worcester College, Oxford.
[35] Precise dates are wanting with respect to Langlande. Facts respecting his personal history are derived from what leaks out in his poem, and from interpolated notes (in a foreign hand) upon certain MS. copies. Of three different texts (published by the E. E. Text Soc.) Mr. Skeat dates one about 1362—a second in or about 1377, and the third still later. The first imprint has date of 1550.