1573. rebekke, old woman; lit. Rebecca; see note to l. 1377 above.
1576. Twelve pence was a considerable sum in those days; being equivalent to something like fifteen shillings of our present money.
1580. winne thy cost, earn your expenses.
1582. viritrate, a term of contempt for an old woman. Cf. 'thou olde trot,' addressed to an old woman; Thersites, in Hazlitt's Old Plays, i. 415. Jamieson gives trat, an old woman; with three examples from G. Douglas. Levins (1570) has: 'Tratte, anus.'
1591. wisly, certainly. I ne may, I cannot (come).
1593. go, walk; as usual, when used with ryde.
1595. axe a libel, apply to have a written declaration of the complaint against me, i. e. a copy of the indictment.
1596. procutour, proctor, to appear on my behalf. Only MS. Hl. has the full form procuratour; the rest have procutour or procatour, as suitable for the metre. These forms are interesting, as furnishing the intermediate step between procurator and proctor. So, in the Prompt. Parv., we find 'proketowre, Procurator,' and 'prokecye, Procuracia'; whence, by loss of e, proctor and proxy. there is dissyllabic, as in A. 3165, and frequently.
1613. Seinte Anne, saint Anna, whose day is July 26. In Luke, ii. 36, is mentioned 'Anna the prophetess.' At the commencement of the apocryphal gospel of Mary, we are told that the virgin's 'father's name was Joachim, and her mother's Anna.' This is the saint Anna here alluded to. See B. 641; G. 70; and Cursor Mundi, l. 10147. Hence it became a common practice to give a girl the name of Mary Ann, which combined the name of the virgin with that of her mother.
1617. I payde, and which I paid.