645. 'The king's law will judge no man angrily, without allowing the accused to answer.'
661. testament, a will; the friars had much to do with the making of wills.
681. 'For they (the people) are faster in their bonds, worse beaten, and more bitterly burnt than is known to the king.' For the word brent, see note to l. 827.
693. The emperour; Constantine, according to a legend which the Lollards loved to repeat; see the full note to P. Plowman, C. xviii. 220.
695. sely kyme, innocent (or silly) wretch. Kyme answers to an A.S. *cȳma = *kūm-ja, lit. 'one who laments,' from the verb found in O.H.G. kūmjan, to lament, chū-mo, a lament; cf. Gk. γόος, wailing; Skt. gu, to sound. See O.H.G. cūm, cūmjan in Schade; and the Idg. root gu, in Fick.
723. 'A title of dignity, to be as a play-mate to them'; a curious expression. Godefroy gives O.F. 'personage, s.m., dignité, bénéfice ecclésiastique; en particulier personnat, dignité ecclésiastique qui donnait quelque prééminence au chanoine qui en était revêtu dans le chapitre auquel il appartenait.' Cotgrave has: 'Personat, a place, or title of honour, enjoyed by a beneficed person, without any manner of jurisdiction, in the church.'
724. Possibly copied from P. Plowman, B. prol. 92:—'Somme serven the king, and his silver tellen.' These ecclesiastics often busied themselves in the law-courts, to their great profit. Cf. l. 790.
725. 'And let out to farm all that business.'
743. builde; so in P. Pl. Crede, 118: 'For we buldeth a burwgh, a brod and a large.' Cf. Wyclif's Works, ed. Arnold, iii. 380.
748. 'Nor (will they) send anything to Him who hath given them everything.'