448. passed, i. e. surpassed.
450. to the offring. In the description of the missal-rites, Rock shews how the bishop (or officiating priest) 'took from the people's selves their offerings of bread and wine.... The men first and then the women, came with their cake and cruse of wine.' So that, instead of money being collected, as now, the people went up in order with their offerings; and questions of precedence of course arose. The Wife insisted on going up first among the women. See Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 2. 33, 149.
453. coverchief (keverchef, or kerchere, kerché). The kerchief, or covering for the head, was, until the fourteenth century, almost an indispensable portion of female attire. See B. 837; Leg. of Good Women, l. 2202.
ful fyne of ground, of a very fine texture. See Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, l. 230, which means 'it was of fine enough texture to take dye in grain.'
454. ten pound. Of course this is a playful exaggeration; but Tyrwhitt was not justified in altering ten pound into a pound; for a pound-weight, in a head-dress of that period, was a mere nothing, as will be readily understood by observing the huge structures represented in Fairholt's Costume, figs. 125, 129, 130, 151, which were often further weighted with ornaments of gold. Skelton goes so far as to describe Elinour Rummyng (l. 72)—
'With clothes upon her hed
That wey a sowe of led.'
Cf. Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, l. 84, and the note; Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, 1585, pp. 63, 70, 72; or ed. Furnivall, pp. 69, 74, 76.
457. streite y-teyd, tightly fastened. See note to l. 174.
moiste, soft—not 'as hard as old boots.' So, in H. 60, moysty ale is new ale.