1172. O Iankin, &c.; 'O Johnny, you are there, are you?' That is, 'so it is you whom I hear, is it, Mr. Johnny?' A derisive interruption. It was common to call a priest Sir John, by way of mild derision; see Monkes Prol. (B. 3119) and Nonne Prestes Prol. (B. 4000). The Host carries the derision a little further by using the diminutive form. See note to B. 4000.
1173. a loller, a term of reproach, equivalent to a canting fellow. Tyrwhitt aptly cites a passage from a treatise of the period, referring to the Harleian Catalogue, no. 1666:—'Now in Engelond it is a comun protectioun ayens persecutioun, if a man is customable to swere nedeles and fals and unavised, by the bones, nailes, and sides, and other membres of Christ. And to absteyne fro othes nedeles and unleful, and repreve sinne by way of charite, is mater and cause now, why Prelates and sum Lordes sclaundren men, and clepen hem Lollardes, Eretikes,' &c.
The reader will not clearly understand this word till he distinguishes between the Latin lollardus and the English loller, two words of different origin which were purposely confounded in the time of Wyclif. The Latin Lollardus had been in use before Wyclif. Ducange quotes from Johannes Hocsemius, who says, under the date 1309—-'Eodem anno quidam hypocritae gyrovagi, qui Lollardi, sive Deum laudantes, vocabantur, per Hannoniam et Brabantiam quasdam mulieres nobiles deceperunt.' He adds that Trithemius says in his Chronicle, under the year 1315—'ita appellatos a Gualtero Lolhard, Germano quodam.' Kilian, in his Dictionary of Mid. Dutch, says—'Lollaerd, mussitator, mussitabundus'; i. e. a mumbler of prayers. This gives two etymologies for Lollardus. Being thus already in use as a term of reproach, it was applied to the followers of Wyclif, as we learn from Thomas Walsingham, who says, under the year 1377—'Hi uocabantur a uulgo Lollardi, incedentes nudis pedibus'; and again—'Lollardi sequaces Joannis Wiclif.' But the Old English loller (from the verb to loll) meant simply a lounger, an idle vagabond, as is abundantly clear from a notable passage in Piers the Plowman, C-text (ed. Skeat), x. 188-218; where William tells us plainly—
'Now kyndeliche, by crist · beþ suche callyd lolleres,
As by englisch of oure eldres · of olde menne techynge.
He that lolleþ is lame · oþer his leg out of ioynte,' &c.
Here were already two (if not three) words confused, but this was not all. By a bad pun, the Latin lolium, tares, was connected with Lollard, so that we find in Political Poems, i. 232, the following—
'Lollardi sunt zizania,
Spinae, uepres, ac lollia,