74. 'His horses were good, but he himself was not gaudily dressed.' Hors is plural as well as singular. In fact, the knight had three horses; one for himself, one for his son, and one for the yeoman. Perhaps we should read—'but hé ne was not gay,' supplying ne from Hl. and Hn. This makes he emphatic; and we may then treat the e in god-e as a light extra syllable, at the caesural pause; for doing which there is ample authority.
75. fustian; see Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 224. gipoun (jipuu·n), a diminutive of gipe, a tight-fitting vest, a doublet; also called a gipell, as in Libeaus Disconus, 224. See Fairholt, s. v. fustian, and s. v. gipon. The O. F. gipe (whence F. jupe) meant a kind of frock or jacket. wered is the A. S. werede, pt. t. of the weak verb werian, to wear. It is now strong; pt. t. wore. See l. 564.
76. This verse is defective in the first foot, which consists solely of the word Al. Such verses are by no means uncommon in the Cant. Tales and in the Leg. of Good Women. Pron. (al· bismut·erd widh·iz ha·berjuu·n). 'His doublet of fustian was all soiled with marks made by the habergeon which he had so lately worn over it.' Bismotered has the same sense as mod. E. besmutted.
habergeoun, though etymologically a diminutive of hauberk, is often used as synonymous with it. 'It was a defence of an inferior description to the hauberk; but when the introduction of plate-armour, in the reign of Edward III, had supplied more convenient and effectual defences for the legs and thighs, the long skirt of the hauberk became superfluous; from that period the habergeon alone appears to have been worn.'—Way, note to Promptorium Parvulorum, p. 220.
'And Tideus, above his Habergeoun,
A gipoun hadde, hidous, sharpe, and hoor,
Wrought of the bristles of a wilde Boor.'
Lydgate, Siege of Thebes, pt. ii.
See the Glossary to Fairholt's Costume in England, s. v. Habergeon; and, for the explanation of gipoun, see the same, under gipon and gambeson. For a picture of a gipoun, see Boutell's Heraldry, ed. Aveling, p. 67.