2085. he, i. e. Solomon; see Prov. xxii. 24, 25.
2090. as Iust as is a squire, as exact (i. e. upright) as a square. He means that he will deal out exact justice, and not condone the sick man's anger without appointing him a penance for it. A squire is a measuring-square, or T-square, as explained in my Dictionary; it is used for measuring right angles with exactitude. For the use of the word, see Shak. L. L. L. v. 2. 474; Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 58; Minshew's Dict.; Romaunt of the Rose, 7064; Floris and Blancheflur, ed. Lumby, 325. Cotgrave gives: 'A l'esquierre, justly, directly, evenly, straightly; by line and levell, to a haire.' Godefroy, s. v. esquarre, refers us to the O. F. translation of 1 Kings, v. 17; 'e que tuz fussent taillie a esquire.' Lydgate has: 'By compas cast, and squared out by squyers'; Siege of Troye, ed. 1555, fol. F 5, back, col. 1.
2095. 'Thei [the friars] cryen faste that thei haf more power in confessioun then other curatis; for thei may schryve alle that comen to hem, bot curatis may no ferther then her owne parischens'; Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 374. Cf. Rom. Rose, 6390-8 (vol. i. 238).
2098. So in I. 1008: 'but-if it lyke to thee of thyn humilitee.'
2105. 'The pavements were made of encaustic tiles, and therefore must have been rather expensive.'—Wright. See my note to Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, l. 194; and Our English Home, p. 20.
2107. 'For the sake of Him who harried hell'; see note to A. 3512; p. 107.
2116. Elie, Elias, Elijah. Elisee, Eliseus, Elisha. There was great strife among the four orders of friars as to the priority of their order. The Carmelites, who took their name from mount Carmel (see 1 Kings, xviii. 19, 20), actually pretended that their order was founded by the prophet Elijah when he retired to mount Carmel to escape the wrath of Ahab; and by this unsurpassable fiction secured to themselves the credit of priority to the rest. It is therefore clear that the friar of Chaucer's story was a Carmelite, as no other friar would have alluded to this story. See Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 353; Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, 382.
2119. for seinte charitee; a common expression. It occurs in the Tale of Gamelin, 513; with which Chaucer was familiar. Cf. B. 4510.
2126. your brother. This alludes to the letters of fraternity, which friars were accustomed to grant, under the conventual seal, to such laymen as had given them benefactions or were likely to leave them money in their wills. The benefactors received in return a brotherly participation in such spiritual benefits as the friars could confer. Thus, in Jack Upland, §§ 28, 29, we find:—'Why be ye [friars] so hardie to grant, by letters of fraternitie, to men and women, that they shall haue part and merite of all your good deeds, and ye weten neuer whether God be apayed with your deeds because of your sin?... What betokeneth that yee haue ordeined that, whan such one as ye haue made your brother or sister, and hath a letter of your seale, that letter mought be brought in your holy chapter, and there be rad,
or els yee will not pray for him?' See Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 377, 420; ed. Matthew, p. 4. Such lay brethren were usually dressed for burial in a friar's habit; see Milton, P. L. iii. 479; Rock, Church of our Fathers, i. 487. A benefactor could even thus belong to all the orders of friars at once; cf. P. Plowman, C. x. 343 (B. vii. 192). This gives point to the question in l. 1955 above.