b 126. as Ambrose: In 386 St. Ambrose, besieged in the Portian Church at Milan by Arian sectaries, kept his followers occupied and in good heart by introducing the Eastern practice of singing hymns and antiphons. See St. Augustine's Confessions Bk. ix, c. 7.
b 131-2. placebo. Vespers of the Dead, named from the first word of the antiphon, Placebo Domino in regione vivorum (Psalm cxiv. 9).
dirige. Matins of the Dead, named from the first word of the antiphon, Dirige, Domine, Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam (Psalm v. 9). Hence our word dirge.
comendacion: an office in which the souls of the dead are commended to God.
matynes of Oure Lady: one of the services in honour of the Virgin introduced in the Middle Ages.
The whole question of these accretions to the Church services is dealt with by our English master in liturgical study, the late Mr. Edmund Bishop, in his essay introductory to the Early English Text Society's edition of the Prymer, since reprinted with additional notes in his Liturgica Historica (Oxford 1918), pp. 211 ff.
b 137 f. deschaunt, countre note, and orgon, and smale brekynge. The elaboration of the Church services in mediaeval times was accompanied by a corresponding enrichment of the music. To the plain chant additional parts were joined, sung in harmony either above or below the plain chant. Descant usually means the addition of a part above, organ and countre-note (= counterpoint) the addition of parts either above or below. All these could be composed note for note with the plain chant. But smale brekyng represents a further complication, whereby the single note in the plain chant was represented by two or more notes in the accompanying parts.
b 140 f. The abuse is referred to in Piers Plowman:
Persones and parsheprests pleynede to the bisshop