A select glossary of English words used formerly in senses different from their present

by Richard Chenevix Trench

To deyen in his excellence and flour,

Thanne whan his name appalled is for age;

For all forgeten is his vasselage.

Chaucer, The Knightes Tale, 2189 (Clar. Press).

And Catoun seith is noon so great encress

Of worldly tresour, as for to live in pees,

Which among vertues hath the vasselage.

Lydgate, Minor Poems, Halliwell’s ed., p. 176.

Vermin. Now always noxious offensive animals of the smaller kind, but employed formerly with no such limitation.

But he shouke of the vermen into the fyre and felt no harme.—Acts xxviii. 5. Geneva Version.