a 115 ff. faitoures (cp. ll. 185 ff.), who feigned some injury or disease to avoid work and win the pity of the charitable, multiplied in the disturbed years following the Black Death. Statutes were passed against them, and even against those who gave them alms (Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life, pp. 261 ff.). But the type was long lived. In the extract from Handlyng Synne (No. I), we have already a monument of their activities.
a 141. 'And those that have cloisters and churches (i.e. monks and priests) shall have some of my goods to provide themselves with copes.'
a 142. Robert Renne-aboute. The type of a wandering preacher; posteles are clearly preachers with no fixed sphere of authority, like the mendicant friars and Wiclif's 'poor priests'. Against both the regular clergy constantly complained that they preached without the authority of the bishop.
a 186. Þat seten: the MS. by confusion has þat seten to seten to begge, &c.
a 187. þat was bake for Bayarde: i.e. 'horse-bread' (l. 208), which used to be made from beans and peas only. Bayard, properly a 'bay horse', was, according to romance, the name of the horse given by Charlemagne to Rinaldo. Hence it became the conventional name for a horse, just as Reynard was appropriated to the fox. Chaucer speaks of proude Bayard (Troilus, Bk. i. 218) and, referring to an unknown story, Bayard the blynde (Canon's Yeoman's Tale, 860).
a 221. Michi vindictam: Romans xii. 19.
a 224. Luke xvi. 9.
a 231. Sapience: the Book of Wisdom, but the quotation is actually from Proverbs xx. 4.
a 234. Mathew with mannes face. Each of the evangelists had his symbol: Matthew, a man; Mark, a lion; Luke, a bull; John, an eagle; and in early Gospel books their portraits are usually accompanied by the appropriate symbols.