a 54-64. Higden took this passage from Giraldus, Itinerarium Cambriae, Bk. ii, c. 11 (vol. vi, p. 139 of the Rolls edition).
a 60-1. be at here aboue, 'be over them', 'have the upper hand'.
a 63. Pimbilmere: the English name for Lake Bala.
b 6-7. þe Flemmynges. The first settlement of Flemings in Pembrokeshire took place early in the twelfth century, and in 1154, Henry II, embarrassed alike by the turbulence of the Welsh, and of the new host of Flemish mercenaries who had come in under Stephen, encouraged a further settlement. They formed a colony still distinguishable from the surrounding Welsh population.
b 11-12. The threefold division of the English according to their Continental origin dates back to Bede's Ecclesiastical History. But the areas settled by Bede's three tribes do not correspond to Southern, Northern, and Midland. The Jutes occupied Kent, whence the South-Eastern dialect; the Saxons occupied the rest of the South, whence the South-Western dialect; and the Angles settled in the Midlands and the North; so that the Midland and Northern dialects are both Anglian, and derive from the same Continental tribe or tribal group.
b 26. þe furste moreyn: the Black Death of 1349. There were fresh outbreaks of plague in 1362, 1369, 1376.
b 26-42. The bracketed passage is an addition by Trevisa himself, and is of primary importance for the history of English and of English education. See the valuable article by W. H. Stevenson in An English Miscellany Presented to Dr. Furnivall, pp. 421 ff.
b 27-8. Iohan Cornwal, a mayster of gramere. A 'master of grammar' was a licensed teacher of grammar. Mr. Stevenson points out that in 1347-8 John of Cornwall received payment from Merton College, Oxford, for teaching the boys of the founder's kin. His countryman Trevisa probably had personal knowledge of his methods of teaching.
b 39-40. and a scholle passe þe se, 'if they should cross the sea'.
b 47-8. The bracketed words are introduced by Trevisa.