281. rent, income, profit; the method of doing this is explained in The Freres Tale, D 1371-4.
282. 'They anoint the sheep's sore'; as a shepherd does with tar; see Tar-box in Halliwell; and cf. l. 707.
298. Maximien; Galerius Valerius Maximianus, usually called Galerius; emperor of Rome, 305-11; a cruel persecutor of the Christians.
297. 'They follow Christ (who went upward) to heaven, just as a bucket (that goes downward) into a well.' Said ironically; their ascent towards heaven is in a downward direction; cf. l. 402. wall for 'well' is rare, but not unexampled; cf. walle-stream, well-stream, in Layamon, vol. i. p. 121, and see walle in Stratmann.
305. 'The truth has (often) slain such men.'
306. 'They comb their "crockets" with a crystal comb.' A crocket was a curl or roll of hair, as formerly worn; see the New E. Dict. There is a lost romance entitled 'King Adelstane with gilden kroket'; see footnote to Havelok, ed. Skeat, p. vi. Sir F. Madden remarks that 'the term crocket points out the period [i.e. the earliest possible date] of the poem's composition, since the fashion of wearing those large rolls of hair so called, only arose at the latter end of the reign of Henry III.'
321. Cf. 'turpis lucri'; Tit. i. 7, 11; 1 Pet. v. 2.
322. meynall, perhaps better spelt meyneall. It is the adj. formed from M.E. meynee, a household, and is the same word as mod. E. menial. Wyclif uses meyneal to translate Lat. domesticam in Rom. xvi. 5. The sense here is—the exaction of tithes is, with these masters, a household business, a part of their usual domestic arrangements.
325. Lit. 'They betake to farm to their sumners,' i.e. they farm out to their sumners the power of harming people as much as they can; they let their sumners make exactions. The method of doing this is fully exposed in Chaucer's Freres Tale. Cf. ll. 328, 725.
333. 'Such rascals are sure to slander men, in order to induce them to win their favour'; i.e. by compounding.