1199. The knight is said to be sib, i. e., akin, to king Arthur, because of the great celebrity of that flower of chivalry.
1201. The reading gousfaucoun is a queer mistake; the scribe seems to have thought that it meant a goshawk! But the sense is war-banner.' See Gonfanon in my Etym. Dict.
1215. at poynt devys, with great exactness, with great regularity; cf. l. 830. The same expression occurs in the Ho. of Fame, 917.
1216. tretys, long and well-shaped; hence this epithet, as applied to the nose of the Prioress; see Prol. A 152. See ll. 932, 1016.
1227. bistad, bestead; i. e. hard beset.
1232. sukkenye, an E. adaptation of the O.F. sorquanie. Cotgrave has: 'Souquenie, f. a canvas Jacket, frock, or Gaberdine; such a one
as our Porters wear.' Mod. F. souquenille, a smock-frock. It was therefore a loose frock, probably made, in this case, of fine linen. For a note in the glossary to Méon's edition says that linen was sometimes the material used for it; and we are expressly told, in the text, that it was not made of hempen hards. Cf. Russ. sukno, cloth.
1235. rideled, 'gathered,' or pleated; F. coillie. Not 'pierced like a riddle,' as suggested in Bell's Chaucer, but gathered in folds like a curtain or a modern surplice; from O.F. ridel (F. rideau), a curtain. Cf. 'filettis, and wymplis, and rydelid gownes and rokettis, colers, lacis,' &c.; Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 41. Hence, in ll. 1236, 7, the statement that every point was in its right place; because it was so evenly gathered.
1240. 'A roket, or rochet, is a loose linen frock synonymous with sukkenye. The name is now appropriated to the short surplice worn by bishops over their cassocks.'—Bell.
1249, 50. Al hadde he be, even if he had been. As the French copy consulted by Warton here omitted two lines of the original, Warton made the singular mistake of supposing that, in l. 1250, Chaucer intended 'a compliment to some of his patrons.' But William de Lorris died in 1260, so that the seignor de Gundesores was 'Henry of Windsor,' as he was sometimes termed[[287]], i. e. no other than Henry III; and the reference was probably suggested by the birth of prince Edward in 1239, unless these two lines were added somewhat later.