Of pricking and of hunting for the hare,

Was all his lust for no cost would he spare."

"A friar there was, a wanton and merry Limitour (a licensed beggar), a full solemne man, who

Was an easy man to give penance

There as he wist (to those he knew) to have a good pittance." Who

"Knew well the taverns in every town,

And every hosleter and gay tapstere,

Better than a lazar or a beggere."

A merchant with a forked beard, "a Flandrish beaver hat, and bootes clasped fair and fetisly."

A threadbare clerk of Oxenford, on a horse as "lean as a rake," who would rather have twenty bookes of Aristotle and his philosophy,