698. 'And caused his brother to be indicted.'
700. wolves-heed, wolf's head. 'This was the ancient Saxon formula of outlawry, and seems to have been literally equivalent to setting the man's head at the same estimate as a wolf's head. In the laws of Edward the Confessor [§ 6], it is said of a person who has fled justice, 'Si postea repertus fuerit et teneri possit, vivus regi reddatur, vel caput ipsius si se defenderit; lupinum enim caput geret a die utlagacionis sue, quod ab Anglis wluesheued nominatur. Et hec sententia communis est de omnibus utlagis.'—Wright. See Thorpe, Ancient Laws, &c., i. 445.
701. of his men, i. e. (some) of his men.
703. 'How the wind was turned'; i. e. which way the wind blew, as we now say.
704. 'When a man's lands were seized by force or unjustly, the peasantry on the estates were exposed to be plundered and ill-treated by the followers of the intruder.'—Wright.
707. 'The messengers of ill tidings, however innocent themselves, often experienced all the first anger of the person to whom they carried them, in the ages of feudal power. Hence the bearer of ill news generally began by deprecating the wrath of the person addressed.'—Wright. This was not, however, peculiar to those times. Cf. Sophocles, Antigone, 228; 2 Hen. IV. i. I. 100; Rich. III. iv. 4. 510; Macb. v. 5. 39.
709. 'I. e. has obtained government of the bailiwick. In former times ... the high sheriff was the officer personally responsible for the peace of his bailiwick, which he maintained by calling out the posse comitatus to assist him.'—Jephson.
710. doth thee crye, causes thee to be proclaimed.
713. 'Greet well my husbands (i. e. servants) and their wives.' The A.S. wif was a neuter substantive, and remained unchanged in the plural, like sheep and deer in modern English. We find wif as a pl. form also in Layamon, l. 1507. The present is a very late example.
714. 'I will go to (attend) the next assizes; see note to l. 715. If schire refers to the shire or county, the result is much the same. In venturing into the shire of which his brother was sheriff, Gamelyn was boldly putting himself into his brother's power.