[85] “The word livery was formerly used to signify anything delivered; see the Northumberland Household Book, p. 60. If it ever bore such an acceptation at that time, one might be induced to suppose, from the following entries, that it here meant a badge, or something of that kind:
| 15 C. of leveres for Robin Hode | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| For leveres, paper and sateyn | 0 | 0 | 20 |
| For pynnes and leveres | 0 | 6 | 5 |
| For 13 C. of leverys | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| For 24 great lyvereys | 0 | 0 | 4 |
We are told that formerly, in the celebration of May-games, the youth divided themselves into two troops, the one in winter livery, the other in the habit of the spring. See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, p. 261.” This quotation is misapplied. Liveries, in the present instance, are pieces of paper or sateyn with some device thereon, which were distributed for money among the spectators. So in a passage which will be shortly quoted from Jack Drum’s Entertainment: “Well said, my boyes, I must have my lord’s livory; what is’t? a May-pole?” See also Stubbs’s Anatomie of Abuses, 1583, sig. M. 2 b, and Skelton’s Don Quixote, part ii. chap. 22.
[86] “Though it varies considerably from that word, this may be a corruption of orpiment, which was much in use for colouring the morris garments.” How orseden can be a corruption of orpiment is not very easy to conceive: it may as well be supposed to mean worsted or buckram. Mr. Steevens thinks that this orseden is the Arse-dine of old Joan Trash, in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, and means flame-coloured paint, used to hobby-horses. The four giants for the revived Midsummer shew at Chester, in 1668, were “to be cullered tinsille arsedine” (MSS. Har. 2150, fo. 373, b.)
[87] “The friar’s coat was generally of russet, as it appears by the following extracts . . . .” The coat of this mock frier would, doubtless, be made of the same stuff as that of a real one.
[88] “Marian was the assumed name of the beloved mistress of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, whilst he was in a state of outlawry, as Robin Hood was his. See Mr. Steevens’s note to a passage in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. This character in the morris-dances was generally represented by a boy. See Strutt’s View of Customs and Manners, vol. iii. p. 150. It appears by one of the extracts, given above, that at Kingston it was performed by a woman, who was paid a shilling each year for her trouble.”
[89] “Mr. Steevens suggests, with great probability, that this word may have the same meaning as howve or houve, used by Chaucer for a head-dress; Maid Marian’s head-dress was always very fine: indeed some persons have derived her name from the Italian word morione, a head-dress.” Mr. Steevens was never less happy than he is in this very probable conjecture. The word howve or houve, in Chaucer, is a mere variation of hood: and Maid Marian’s head-dress must, to be sure, have been “very fine” when made of four yards of broad cloth! A huke is a woman’s gown or habit. (Huke, palla, toga, palium Belgicis feminis usitatum.—Skin.) Skelton mentions it in his Elinour Rumming:
“Her huke of Lyncole grene.”
“All women in generall,” says Moryson, speaking of the Netherlands, “when they goe out of the house, put on a hoyke or vaile, which covers their heads, and hangs downe vpon their backs to their legges,” &c. (Itinerary, 1617, part 3, p. 169).
Sir John Cullum seems to have mistaken Rose Sparkes’ “best hook” for a “hook worn at the bottom of the stays, to regulate the sitting of the apron” (History of Hawsted, p. 25). Morione, in Italian, signifies a murrion or scull-cap; and though the derivation alluded to appears to have the sanction of Blount’s Glosographia, nothing can be more completely absurd. Marian is Mary.