403. herberwe, harbour; see note to l. 765. mone, moon, time of the lunation.
lodemenage, pilotage. A pilot was called a lodesman; see Way's note in Prompt. Parv. p. 310; Riley's Memorials of London, p. 655; Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, 1488. Furnivall's Temporary Preface, p. 98, gives the Lat. form as lodmannus, whence lodmannagium, pilotage, examples of which are given. Sometimes, lodesman meant any guide or conductor, as in Rob. of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, 9027; Monk of Evesham, ed. Arber, p. 106. M. E. lode is the A. S. lād, a way, a course, the sb. whence the verb to lead is derived. It is itself derived from A. S. līðan, to travel.
404. Cf. Rom. de la Rose, 5394—'Qui cercheroit jusqu'en Cartage.'
408. Gootland, Gottland, an island in the Baltic Sea.
409. cryke, creek, harbour, port.
410. We find actual mention of a vessel called the Maudelayne
belonging to the port of Dartmouth, in the years 1379 and 1386; see Essays on Chaucer, p. 484. See also N. & Q. 6 S. xii. 47.
The Doctour.
415. astronomye, (really) astrology. See Saunders on Chaucer, p. 111; Warton, Hist. E. Poet. (1840), ii. 202.
415, 416. kepte, watched. The houres are the astrological hours. He carefully watched for a favourable star in the ascendant. 'A great portion of the medical science of the middle ages depended upon astrological and other superstitious observances.'—Wright. 'A Phisition must take heede and aduise him of a certaine thing, that fayleth not, nor deceiueth, the which thing Astronomers of Ægypt taught, that by coniunction of the bodye of the Moone with sterres fortunate, commeth dreadful sicknesse to good end: and with contrary Planets falleth the contrary, that is, to euill ende'; &c.—Batman upon Bartholomè, lib. viii. c. 29. Precisely the same sort of thing was in vogue much later, viz. in 1578; see Bullein's Dialogue against the Feuer Pestilence (E. E. T. S.), p. 32.