1317. Alluding to the shape of the bishop's crosier. In P. Plowman, C. xi. 92, the crosier is described as having a hook at one end, by which he draws men back to a good life, and a spike at the other, which he uses against hardened offenders. On the crosier, see Rock, Church of Our Fathers, ii. 181. The bishop dealt with such offenders as were contumacious to the archdeacon.
1321. For the character of a Somnour, see A. 623.
1323. espiaille, set of spies; see note to B. 2509, p. 213.
1324. taughte, informed; the final e is not elided.
1327. wood were, should be, were to be as mad as a hare. See 'As mad as a March hare' in Hazlitt's Proverbs.
1329. The mendicant orders were subject only to their own general or superior, not to the bishops. In the piece called Jack Upland (§ 11), Jack asks the friars—'Why be ye not vnder your bishops visitations, and leegemen to our king?'—British Poets, ed. Chalmers, 1810; i. 567.
1331. terme, i. e. during the term.
1332. Peter, by saint Peter. 'The summoner's repartee is founded upon the law by which houses of ill-fame were exempted from ecclesiastical interference, and licensed.'—Bell. 'Stewes, are those places which were permitted in England to women of professed incontinency.... But king Henry VIII., about the year 1546, prohibited them for ever.'—Cowel's Interpreter. Cock Lane, Smithfield, contained such houses; see my notes to P. Plowman, C. vii. 366, 367.
1343. approwours, agents, men who looked after his profits. From the O. Fr. approuer, apprower, to cause to profit, to enrich; from the O. Fr. sb. prou, profit, whence also E. prowess. Miswritten as approver in the seventeenth century, though distinct from approve (from approbare). See the New Eng. Dictionary. Tyrwhitt has the spelling approvers.