277. Reply: you admit (l. 283) that God made all things according to weight, number, and measure. But a friar is something; ergo, God made friars according to weight, &c. Why are priests so numerous? As to a man's hand (l. 287), the number of fingers is fixed, and an extra finger is monstrous. But neither God nor holy church have fixed the number of priests or friars. 'Many hondis togider maken light werk'; pp. 105-6. Cf. note to P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 270.
At this point the friar introduces a subject not discussed in the copy of Jack Upland here printed, viz. the subject of transubstantiation. He says that Jack accuses the friars of saying that the bread is not Christ's body, but mere roundness and whiteness, and accident without subject; and Wyclif is adduced as saying that it remains material bread, and only Christ's body in a figurative sense; pp. 106-10. The rest of the friar's reply (which goes but little further) is inapplicable to our text, so that the latter part of the treatise, ll. 294-end, is left unanswered. Perhaps sections 54-64 were, at first, a somewhat later addition.
296. This has been partly said before; see l. 77 above.
310. It was thought that to die in a friar's habit increased a man's chance of salvation; see l. 100 above.
320. Cf. note to P. Plowman, C. xiii. 21. See l. 246 above.
336. Cf. P. Plowman, C. xxiii. 323-72.
368. This enquiry takes up a large portion of the Ploughman's Crede. The jealousy of one order against the other was very remarkable. See note to l. 100 above.
399. See James, i. 27; cf. l. 36 above.
411. See Matt. xi. 30. Wyclif has—'For my yok is softe, and my charge light.'