331. Fortescue (De Laudibus Legum Angliae, c. 29) describes a franklin to be a pater familias—magnis ditatus possessionibus; i. e. he was a substantial householder and a man of some importance. See Warton, Hist. E. Poet., ed. 1840, ii. 202; and Gloss. to P. Plowman.
332. dayes-ye, daisy; A. S. dæges ēage, lit. eye of day (the sun).
333. 'He was sanguine of complexion.' The old school of medicine, following Galen, supposed that there were four 'humours,' viz. hot, cold, moist, and dry (see l. 420), and four complexions or temperaments of men, viz. the sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholy. The man of sanguine complexion abounded in hot and moist humours, as shown in the following description, given in the Oriel MS. 79 (as quoted in my Preface to P. Plowman, B-text, p. xix):—
'Sanguineus.
Largus, amans, hilaris, ridens, rubeique coloris,
Cantans, carnosus, satis audax, atque benignus:
multum appetit, quia calidus; multum potest, quia humidus.'
334. by the morwe, in the morning.
a sop in wyn, wine with pieces of cake or bread in it; see E. 1843. See Brand, Antiq. (ed. Ellis), ii. 137. Later, sop-in-wine was a jocose name for a kind of pink or carnation; id. ii. 91.