p. [2]. Lady Facetia. Apparently the author’s feminine of Facetus (perhaps through confusion with facetiæ, jokes), because courtesy was usually personified as a woman. In the Tesoretto, the chief virtue is Larghezza (liberality), upon whom Courtesy attends, together with Good-Faith and Valour, over against the masculine qualities, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, Justice.
p. [3]. Bele. Fr. belle, beautiful. Not common in English (see N.E.D.) until the seventeenth century.
p. [6]. Trencher. Originally, a slice of wholemeal bread, four days old, upon which food was served. Later, it was made of wood.
p. [8]. Where they ought to be. In a knife-rack or case? See Wright, Domestic Manners and Customs, p. 464.
THE A B C OF ARISTOTLE
MS. Lambeth 853, fol. 30, about 1430, written without breaks; Harl. 5086, fol. 70b, and Harl. 1304, fol. 103, about 1450 (printed in Queene Eliz. Achad.). It is needless to say that nothing of the sort is found in Aristotle; the author is unknown. The introduction is in connected alliterative verse (lacking in Harl. 5086, and expanded into a generalised religious discourse in Harl. 1304).
p. [10]. Elenge. See N.E.D. on this rare word. Its two originally distinct meanings (1) long, hence, tedious, and (2) lonely, remote, combine to form a third meaning, melancholy.
URBANITATIS
MS. Cotton Caligula, A ii, fol. 88, 1446-60. Author unknown. Apparently first printed by Dr. Furnivall. The Duke of Norfolk, grandfather of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, was among the young henchmen at the court of Edward IV., brought up on “the booke of urbanitie.”
p. [13]. Good manners, &c. William of Wykeham was more curt in his motto for Winchester College: “Manners makyth man.”