and in the Freres Tale, D. 1395—
'"Depardieux," quod this yeman, "dere brother."'
It is much more to the point to observe that the Man of Lawe talks about law in l. 43. Cotgrave, in his French Dictionary, under par, gives—'De par Dieu soit, a [i. e. in] God's name be it. De par moy, by my means. De par le roy, by the king's appointment.' De par is a corruption of O.Fr. de part, on the part or side of; so that de par le roy means literally, 'as for the king,' i. e. 'in the king's name.' Similarly, de par Dieu is 'in God's name.' See Burguy, Grammaire de la Langue D'oil, ii. 359. The form dieux is a nominative, from the Latin deus; thus exhibiting an exception to the almost universal law in French, that the modern F. substantives answer to the accusative cases of Latin substantives, as fleur to florem, &c. Other exceptions may be found in some proper names, as Charles, Jacques, from Carolus, Jacobus, and in fils, from filius.
41. In the Morality entitled Everyman, in Hazlitt's Old Eng. Plays, i. 137, is the proverb—'Yet promise is debt.' Mr. Hazlitt wrongly considers that as the earliest instance of the phrase.—M. Cf. Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum, p. 64:—'And of a trewe man beheest is dette.'
holde fayn, &c.; gladly perform all my promise.
43. man ... another = one ... another. The Cambridge MS. is right.—M. 'For whatever law a man imposes on others, he should in justice consider as binding on himself.' This is obviously a quotation, as appears from l. 45. The expression referred to was probably proverbial. An English proverb says—'They that make the laws must not break them'; a Spanish one—'El que ley establece, guardarla debe,' he who makes a law ought to keep it; and a Latin one—'Patere legem quam ipse tulisti,' abide by the law which you made yourself. The idea is expanded in the following passage from Claudian's Panegyric on the 4th consulship of Honorius, carm. viii., l. 296.—
'In commune iubes si quid censesue tenendum,
Primus iussa subi; tunc obseruantior aequi
Fit populus, nec ferre negat cum uiderit ipsum