[89]. Probet &c.: 1 Cor. xi. 28.
[91]. wurðe þer to, fit for that: þer to replaces an older genitive, ðæs wierþe; comp. 86/142.
[94]. Erest, firstly: oðer siðe, 95, secondly; þridde siðe, 99, thirdly.
[95]. wissinge, instruction, guidance; i.e. penance.
[96]. acxen: referring to the ceremony of giving the ashes to the congregation on Ash Wednesday. bilien, pertain, are associated with: comp. ‘þe six werkes of þesternesse · þe bilige to nihte,’ OEH ii. 15/3.
[97]. saccum, a penitential garment of sackcloth, worn over other clothes, thus differing from cilicium, hair-shirt; S. Jerome, Ep. 44. The writer has omitted after it, plagas, the ‘smerte dintes’ of the next line, ‘disceplines,’ 62/35.
[99]. siðes: read siðe; the superfluous s is due to the initial of the next word: in liðe, 100, final þ has been lost before initial þ: swiðere, 119, owes its final re to the beginning of the next word. shereðuresdaies, of Maundy Thursday: corresponds to OWScand. skíriþórsdagr, purification Thursday, but was wrongly connected with ME. scheren, to shear. The form in sh is native or naturalized; see Björkman, 125, and comp. 99/73.
[100]. sinne bendes: see [81/67 note]. crepe to cruche, creeping to the cross; the adoration of the cross on Good Friday; Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii2. 88.
[101]. lange fridai: langa frīgedæg, an ancient name for Good Friday, so called from its fast and observances. gon—fantston, appears to refer to some procession of the laity at the blessing of the font on Easter Eve, perhaps local, as it is not noticed in the service books. Brand, Popular Antiquities (Bohn), i. 158, quotes from Googe’s translation of the Regnum Papisticum of Kirchmayer, ‘Nine times about the font they marche, and on the Saintes do call; | Then still at length they stande, and straight the priest begins withall.’ Of course there was a procession of the clergy to and from the font, Frere, Use of Sarum, i. 149. In ‘ðor-of in esterne be we wunen | Seuene siðes to funt cumen,’ GE 3289, the reference is to the procession made to the font every afternoon in Easter week. The font is the symbol of the sepulchre because, as Durandus, vi. De Sabbato sancto, says, ‘fit hac die baptismus, quia in eo consepulti sumus christo.’ It is noteworthy that nothing is said of the Easter Sepulchre, which was probably not instituted before the fourteenth century.
[103]. tweire kinne, of two kinds; OE. twēgra cynna, but kinnes, 104, 105 is a sing. gen. in form, with plural meaning: see [81/80 note].