Now, to protect, but once to protect by prohibiting or fencing round, to forbid, as ‘défendre’ is still in French.
Now wol I you defenden hasardrye.—Chaucer, The Pardoneres Tale. (Clar. Press.)
Whan sawe ye in eny maner age
That highe God defendide mariage
By expres word?
Id., The Wife of Bath’s Tale.
And oure Lord defended hem that thei scholde not tell that avisioun till that He were rysen.—Sir John Mandeville, Voiage and Travaile, p. 114.
O sons, like one of us man is become,
To know both good and evil, since his taste
Of that defended fruit.