Again, compare the Archpriest’s stanzas (already quoted) on the power of money with our English Song in praise of Sir Penny:—
Go bet, Peny, go bet [go],
For thee makyn bothe frynd and fo.
Peny is a hardy knyght,
Peny is mekyl of myght,
Peny of wrong, he makyt ryght
In every cuntré qwer he goo.
[Go bet, etc.]
Ritson quotes a companion poem from ‘a MS. of the 13th or 14th century, in the library of Berne’:—
Denier fait cortois de vilain,