So in 1417 the order to have six wings plucked from the wing of every goose (except those commonly called Brodoges—? brood geese—) to make arrows for our archers, says that the feathers are rationabiliter solvendis. See also p. 653.
p. 188, [l. 358]. The stuarde and his stafe. Cp. Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey (ed. Singer, i. 34), “he had in his hall, daily, three especial tables furnished with three principal officers; that is to say, a Steward, which was always a dean or a priest; a Treasurer, a knight; and a Comptroller, an esquire; which bare always within his house their white staves.
“Then had he a cofferer, three marshals, two yeomen ushers, two grooms, and an almoner. He had in the hall-kitchen two clerks of his kitchen, a clerk comptroller, a surveyor of the dresser, a clerk of his spicery.” See the rest of Wolsey’s household officers, p. 34-9.
p. 190, [l. 409]. Ale. See in Notes on the Months, p. 418, the Song “Bryng us in good ale,” copied from the MS. song-book of an Ipswich Minstrel of the 15th century, read by Mr Thomas Wright before the British Archæological Association, August, 1864, and afterwards published in The Gentleman’s Magazine. P.S.—The song was first printed complete in Mr Wright’s edition of Songs & Carols for the Percy Society, 1847, p. 63. He gives Ritson’s incomplete copy from Harl. MS. 541, at p. 102.
Bryng us in good ale, and bryng us in good ale;
For owr blyssyd lady sak, bryng us in good ale.
Bryng us in no browne bred, fore that is made of brane,
Nor bryng us in no whyt bred, for therin is no game;
But bryng us in good ale.
Bryng us in no befe, for there is many bonys;