11. 'So nature excites them, in their feelings (instincts).' hir, their; A. S. hira, lit. 'of them,' gen. pl. of hē, he. corage (kuraa·jə); mod. E. courage; see l. 22.
12, 13. According to ordinary English construction, the verb longen must be supplied after palmers. In fact, l. 13 is parenthetical. Note that Than, in l. 12, answers to Whan in l. 1.
13. palmer, originally, one who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and brought home a palm-branch as a token. Chaucer, says Tyrwhitt, seems to consider all pilgrims to foreign parts as palmers. The essential difference between the two classes of persons here mentioned, the palmer and the pilgrim, was, that the latter had 'some dwelling-place, a palmer had none; the pilgrim travelled to some certain place, the palmer to all, and not to any one in particular; the pilgrim might go at his own charge, the palmer must profess wilful poverty; the pilgrim might give over his profession, the palmer must be constant'; Blount's Glossographia (taken from Speght). See note to P. Plowman, B. v. 523.
The fact is, that palmers did not always reach the Holy Land. They commonly went to Rome first, where not unfrequently the Pope 'allowed them to wear the palm as if they had visited Palestine'; Rock, Church of our Fathers, vol. iii. pt. 1. p. 439.
to seken, to seek; the A. S. gerund, tō sēcanne; expressive of purpose. strondes, strands, shores.
14. ferne halwes, distant saints, i. e. shrines. Here ferne = ferrene = distant, foreign. 'To ferne poeples'; Chaucer's Boethius, bk. ii. met. 7. See Mätzner's M. E. Dict. Ferne also means 'ancient,' but not here.
halwes, saints; cf. Scotch Hallow-e'en, the eve of All Hallows, or All Saints; the word is here applied to their shrines.
Chaucer has, 'to go seken halwes,' to go (on a pilgrimage) to seek
saints' shrines; D. 657. couthe (kuudh'), well known; A. S. cūð, known, pp. of cunnan, to know. sondry (sun·dri), various.
16. wende, go; pret. wente, Eng. went. The use of the present tense in modern English is usually restricted to the phrase 'he wends his way.'