257. as it were right (E. Hn. &c.); and pleye as (Hl.). The sense is—'and he could romp about, exactly as if he were a puppy-dog.'
258. love-dayes. 'Love-days (dies amoris) were days fixed for settling differences by umpire, without having recourse to law or violence. The ecclesiastics seem generally to have had the principal share in the management of these transactions, which, throughout the Vision of Piers Ploughman, appear to be censured as the means of hindering justice and of enriching the clergy.'—Wright's Vision of Piers Ploughman, vol. ii. p. 535.
'Ac now is Religion a rydere, and a rennere aboute,
A ledere of love-dayes,' &c.
Piers Ploughman, A. xi. 208, ed. Skeat; see also note to P. Pl. ed. Skeat, B. iii. 157. The sense is—'he could give much help on love-days (by acting as umpire).' See ll. 259-261.
As to loveday, see Wyclif, Works, ed. Matthew, pp. 172, 234, 512; and the same, Works, ed. Arnold, ii. 77; iii. 322; Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, i. 496; Titus Andronicus, i. 1. 491. In the Testament of Love, bk. i. (ed. 1561, fol. 287, col. 2) we find—'What (quod she) ... maked I not a louedaie betwene God and mankind, and chese a maide to be nompere [umpire], to put the quarell at ende?'
260. cope, a priest's vestment; a cloak forming a semicircle when laid flat; the semi-cope (l. 262) was a short cloak or cape. Cf. Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, ll. 227, 228:—
'His cope that biclypped him, wel clene was it folden,
Of double-worstede y-dyght, doun to the hele.'