117. forster, forester. Hence the names Forester, Forster, and Foster.
The Prioresse.
118. 'A nunne, y wene a pryores'; Rob. of Brunne, Hand. Synne, 7809.
120. In this line, as in ll. 509 and 697, the word se-ynt seems to be dissyllabic. Six MSS. agree here; and the seventh (Harleian) has nas for was, which keeps the same rhythm. Edd. 1532, 1550, and 1561 have the same words, omitting but.
seynt Loy. Loy is from Eloy, i. e. St. Eligius, whose day is Dec. 1; see the long account of him in Butler's Lives of the Saints. He was a goldsmith, and master of the mint to Clotaire II., Dagobert I., and Clovis II. of France; and was also bishop of Noyon. He became the patron saint of goldsmiths, farriers, smiths, and carters. The Lat. Eligius necessarily became Eloy in O. French, and is Eloy or Loy in English, the latter form being the commoner. The Catholicon Anglicum (A.D. 1483) gives: 'Loye, elegius (sic), nomen proprium.' Sir T. More, Works, ed. 1577, p. 194, says: 'St. Loy we make an horse-leche.' Barnaby Googe, as cited in Brand, Pop. Antiq. i. 364 (ed. Ellis), says:—
'And Loye the smith doth looke to horse, and smithes of all degree,
If they with iron meddle here, or if they goldesmithes bee.'
There is a district called St. Loye's in Bedford; a Saint Loyes chapel
near Exeter; &c. Churchyard mentions 'sweete Saynct Loy'; Siege of Leith, st. 50. In Lyndesay's Monarchè, bk. ii. lines 2299 and 2367, he is called 'sanct Eloy.' In D. 1564, the carter prays to God and Saint Loy, joining the names according to a common formula; but the Prioress dropped the divine name. Perhaps she invoked St. Loy as being the patron saint of goldsmiths; for she seems to have been a little given to a love of gold and corals; see ll. 158-162. Warton's notion, that Loy was a form of Louis, only shews how utterly unknown, in his time, were the phonetic laws of Old French.
Many more illustrations might be added; such as—'By St. Loy, that draws deep'; Nash's Lenten Stuff, ed. Hindley, p. xiv. 'God save her and Saint Loye'; Jack Juggler, ed. Roxburgh Club, p. 9; and see Eligius in the Index to the Parker Society's publications.