221. The vein honour: the definite form is rather less regularly used by Gower in adjectives taken from French than in others, e.g. iii. 889, ‘For with here fals compassement’; but on the other hand, i. 864, ‘the pleine cas,’ ii. 412, ‘And thurgh his false tunge endited,’ and 824, ‘This false knyht upon delay.’
246. is went: cp. iii. 878 and Chaucer, Cant. Tales, E 1013, F 567.
247. here lawe positif: the ‘lex positiva’ is that which is not morally binding in itself, but only so because imposed by (ecclesiastical) authority: cp. Vox Clam. iii. 227 ff. This is naturally the sphere within which Church dispensations of all kinds take effect.
248. Hath set. Apparently ‘set’ is intransitive, ‘Since their positive law hath set itself to make,’ &c. There is no good authority for reading ‘hire.’.
252. There is hardly another instance of ‘but’ for ‘bot’ in F, and the form ‘right’ for ‘riht’ in the preceding line is very unusual.
260. the manhode, i.e. human nature: see note on l. 72. For ‘thenkth’ see note on 461.
263. withholde, ‘retained as her servant.’
268. in the point &c., i.e. so soon as it is collected. The allusion is to the circumstances of the campaign of the Bishop of Norwich in 1385; cp. Vox Clam. iii. 373 (margin), and see Froissart (ed. Lettenhove), vol. x. p. 207.
278. That scholde be &c., i.e. the papacy, which by reason of the schism has become a cause of war and strife.
289. Gregoire. The reference is to such passages as Regula Pastoralis, i. cap. 8, 9. The quotation in the margin at l. 298 is loosely taken from the Homilies on the Gospel (Migne, Patrol. vol. 76. p. 1128), ‘Mercenarius quippe est qui locum quidem pastoris tenet, sed lucra animarum non quaerit: terrenis commodis inhiat, honore praelationis gaudet, temporalibus lucris pascitur, impensa sibi ab hominibus reverentia laetatur.’ The idea expressed by ‘non vt prosint sed vt presint’ often occurs in Gregory’s writings, e.g. Reg. Past. ii. cap. 6, ‘nec praeesse se hominibus gaudent sed prodesse.’