[589] "Parson's Tale."—"Complete Works," vol. iv. p. 581.
[590] "Munimenta Gildhallæ Londiniensis."—"Liber albus, Liber custumarum; Liber Horn," Rolls, 1859, ed. Riley. The regulations (in French) relating to the Pui are drawn from the "Liber Custumarum," compiled in 1320 (14 Ed. II.), pp. 216 ff. "The poetical competitions called puis," established in the north of France, "seem to have given rise to German and Dutch imitations, such as the Master Singers and the Chambers of Rhetoric." G. Paris, "Littérature française au moyen âge," paragraph 127. To these we can add the English imitation which now occupies us.
[591] "Songs and Carols now first printed," ed. Th. Wright, Percy Society, 1847, 8vo, p. 4.
For hortyng of here hosyn
Non inclinare laborant.
In the same piece, large collars, wide sleeves, big spurs are satirised. Th. Wright, "Political Poems and Songs from Ed. III. to Ric. III.," Rolls, 1859, 2 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 275.
[593] "Political Poems," ibid., vol. i. p. 263.
[594] The greater part of those that have come down to us are of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but Robin was very popular, and his praises were sung as early as the fourteenth century. The lazy parson in Langland's Visions confesses that he is incapable of chanting the services:
But I can rymes of Robin Hood · and Randolf erle of Chestre.
Ed. Skeat, text B. v. 402. See above, p. 224.