It is curious that, in Bell's Chaucer, a quotation is given from the Ballad of Clerk Saunders (Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii.) to shew that shot-window cannot mean 'shut window.' But it does not prove that it cannot mean 'hinge-shutting window,' as I have shewn the right sense to be.
'Then she has ta'en a crystal wand,
And she has stroken her troth thereon;
She has given it him out at the shot-window,
With mony a sad sigh and heavy groan.'
3361. Tyrwhitt absurdly says that ll. 3361, 3362 should be broken into four short verses, and that ladý (sic) rimes with be! In Bell's edition, they are printed in small type! They are just ordinary lines; and be (pronounced nearly as modern bay) certainly never rimed with lády—nor yet with la-dý—in Chaucer's time, when the final y was sounded like the modern ee in meet, and would rather have rimed with a word like my. It is a mere whim.
3375. menes, intermediate people, go-betweens; see Mene, sb., in Gloss. to P. Plowman, with numerous references. Brocage is the employment of a 'broker' or agent, and so means much the same. See Brokage in New E. Dict., and Brocage in Gloss. to P. Plowman.
3377. brokkinge, with quick regular interruptions, quavering, in a 'broken' manner. See Brock in New E. Dict.
3379. wafres, wafers. 'They (F. gaufres) are usually sold at fairs, and are made of a kind of batter poured into an iron instrument, which shuts up like a pair of snuffers. It is then thrust into the fire, and when it is with-drawn and opened, the gaufre, or wafer, is taken out and eaten "piping hote out of the glede," as here described.'—Note in Bell's Chaucer.
3380. mede, reward, money; distinct from meeth, mead, in l. 3378. The sense of mede is very amply illustrated in P. Plowman. L. 3380 intimates that, as she lived in a town, she could spend money at any time.