b 5. 'For I judged those men as Reason taught me.' Skeat's interpretation—that made of means 'made verses about'—is forced. The sense is that the idlers and hermits thought little of the dreamer, and he was equally critical of them.
b 6. as ich cam by Conscience: 'as I passed by Conscience', referring to a vision described in the previous Passus, in which Conscience is the principal figure.
b 10 f. In hele and in vnité, 'in health and in my full senses', and Romynge in remembraunce qualify me.
b 14. Mowe oþer mowen, 'mow or stack'. For these unrelated words see the Glossary.
b 16. haywarde: by derivation 'hedge-ward'. He watched over enclosures and prevented animals from straying among the crops. Observe that ME. nouns denoting occupation usually survive in surnames:—Baxter 'baker', Bow(y)er, Chapman, Dyer, Falconer, Fletcher 'arrow-maker', Fo(re)ster, Franklin, Hayward, Lister (= litster, 'dyer'), Palmer, Reeve(s), Spicer, Sumner, Tyler 'maker or layer of tiles', Warner 'keeper of warrens', Webb, Webster, Wright, Yeoman, &c.
b 20-1. 'Or craft of any kind that is necessary to the community, to provide food for them that are bedridden.'
b 24. to long, 'too tall': cp. B-text, Passus xv. 148 my name is Longe Wille. Consistency in such details in a poem full of inconsistencies makes it probable that the poet is describing himself, not an imagined dreamer.
b 33. Psalm lxii. 12.
b 45. 1 Corinthians vii. 20.
b 46 ff. Cp. the note to XI b 131 f. The dreamer appears to have made his living by saying prayers for the souls of the dead, a service which, from small beginnings in the early Middle Ages, had by this time withdrawn much of the energy of the clergy from their regular duties. See note to XI b 140 f.