1712. to preche. The friars were popular preachers of the middle ages. They were to live by begging, and were therefore often called the Mendicant Orders; see l. 1912, and the notes to A. 208, 209. The friar of our story was a Carmelite; see note to l. 2116.
1717. trentals. A trental (from Low Lat. trentale, O. F. trentel) was an office of thirty masses, to be said on so many consecutive days, for the benefit of souls in purgatory. It also meant, as here, the sum paid for the same to the priest or friar. See Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 299, 374; ed. Matthew (E. E. T. S.) pp. 211, 516; and the poem entitled St. Gregory's Trental, in Religious, Political, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 83.
1722. possessioners. This term seems to have been applied (1) to the regular orders of monks who possessed landed property, and (2) to the beneficed clergy. I think there is here particular reference to the latter, as indicated by the occurrence of preest in l. 1727, curat in 1816, and viker and persone in l. 2008. The friars, on the contrary, were supposed to have no endowments, but to subsist entirely upon alms; they contrived, however, to evade this restriction, and in Pierce the Plowman's Crede, there is a description of a Dominican convent built with considerable splendour. I take the expression 'Thanked be god' in l. 1723 to be a parenthentical remark made by the Somnour who tells the story, as it is hardly consistent with the views of the friars. As to the perpetual jealousies between the friars and the possessioners, see P. Plowman, B. v. 144.
1728. It was usual (as said in note to l. 1717) to sing the thirty masses on thirty consecutive days, as Chaucer here remarks. But the friar says they are better when 'hastily y-songe'; and it would appear
that the friars used occasionally to sing all the thirty masses in one day, and so save a soul from twenty-nine days of purgatory; cf. ll. 1729, 1732. In English Gilds, ed. Toulmin Smith, p. 8, we have an example of this. The wardens are there directed to summon the Minorite Friars to say the dirge, 'and on the morwe to seie a trent of masses atte same freres.'
In Jack Upland, § 13, we find: 'Why make ye [freres] men beleeue that your golden trentall sung of you, to take therefore ten shillings, or at least fiue shillings, woll bring souls out of hell, or out of purgatorie?'
1730. oules. The M. E. forms oule, owel, owul, as well as A. S. awul, awel, are various spellings of E. awl, which see in the New Eng. Dict. Hence oules means awls or piercing instruments. In the Life of St. Katherine, l. 2178, the tormentors torture the saint with 'eawles of irne,' i. e. iron awls. In Horstmann's South-English Legendary (E. E. T. S.), St. Blase is tormented with 'oules kene,' which tore his flesh as when men comb wool (p. 487, l. 84); hence he became the patron saint of wool-combers. Similar tortures were applied by fiends in the medieval descriptions of hell. See Ancren Riwle, p. 212; St. Brandan, ed. Wright, pp. 22, 48.
'There are the furies tossing damnèd souls
On burning forks.'
Marlowe, Faustus, Act v. sc. 4.