These examples quite establish the sense. The derivation is from the rare A. F. escoymous, which occurs in P. Meyer's ed. of Nicole Bozon (Soc. des Anc. Textes Français), p. 158:—'si il poy mange e beyt poy, lors est gageous ou escoymous,' if he eats and drinks little, then is he delicate or nice. Robert of Brunne has the spelling esquaymous; Handlyng Synne, l. 7249.
3338. dangerous, sparing; see the Glossary.
3340. Cutts (Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, p. 219) seems to think that the clerk went about the parish with his censer, as he sometimes certainly went about with holy water. Warton, on the other hand, says that 'on holidays it was his business to carry the censer about the church, and he takes this opportunity of casting unlawful glances on the handsomest ladies of the parish.' Warton is clearly right here, for there is an allusion to the ladies coming forward with the usual offering (l. 3350); cf. note to A. 450. And see Persones Tale, l. 407.
3354. for paramours, for love's sake: a redundant expression, since par means 'for.' Cf. n. to l. 1155, at p. 67.
3358. shot-windowe. Brockett's Northern Glossary gives: 'Shot-window, a projecting window, common in old houses'; but this may have been copied from Horne Tooke, who seems to have guessed at, and misunderstood, the passage, below, in Gawain Douglas. In the new edition of Jamieson, Mr. Donaldson defines Schot as 'a window set on hinges and opening like a shutter,' and explains that, 'in the West of Scotland, a projecting window is called an out-shot window, whereas a shot-window or shot is one that can be opened or shut like
a door or shutter by turning on its hinges.' It is material to the story that the window here mentioned should be readily opened and shut. The passage in G. Douglas's tr. of Virgil, prol. to bk. vii, evidently refers to a window of this character, as the poet first says:—
'Ane schot-wyndo vnschet a lytill on char,'
i. e. I unshut the shot-window, and left it a little ajar; and he goes on to say that the weather was so cold that he soon shut it again—
'The schot I clossit, and drew inwart in hy.'
See also ll. 3695, 6 below. In the next line, upon merely means 'in' or 'formed in.'