388 f. That is, the right cause has no defence but in the rule of personal inclination and interest, the principle expressed by ‘Where I love, there I hold.’
407 ff. This is a charge against those who hold office in the Church of deliberately throwing temptation in the way of their people, in order to profit by the fines which may be imposed for breaches of morality and discipline. The meaning is fully illustrated by parallel passages in the Mirour de l’omme, 20161 ff., and the Vox Clamantis, iii. 195; cp. Chaucer, Pers. Tale, 721. The sentence here is a little disorderly and therefore obscure: ‘Men say that they drive forth their flock from the smooth meadow into the briars, because they wish to seize and by such ill-treatment take away the wool which shall remain upon the thorns, torn out by the briars,’ &c. The archdeacon’s court is chiefly referred to.
416. chalk for chese, cp. ii. 2346: it is a proverbial expression still current.
430. ‘We see the lot drawn amiss’: for ‘merel’ cp. Mir. 23496.
434. Hebr. v. 4.
452. in audience, ‘in public assembly’: cp. ii. 2556.
454. a chirie feire, taken as an emblem of delights which are transitory: cp. vi. 890 f.,
‘And that endureth bot a throwe,
Riht as it were a cherie feste.’
460. understode, past subj. with indefinite sense: cp. i. 383, ii. 88, iii. 971, iv. 2597, 2728, vi. 1474. ‘Whoso understood their words, to him it seems likely,’ &c., instead of ‘to him it would seem likely’; cp. l. 520.