Capit focariam, ut per cubiculi
Fortunam habeat fortunam loculi,
Et per vehiculum omen vehiculi.
I have rendered the word, according to its derivation, by fire-side woman, for it is explained in an old gloss as meretrix foco assidens. See Ducange in v. Fuller (Church Hist. p. 27, folio edit.) makes very needless difficulties on the meaning of this word, apparently for the sake of introducing some equally needless jokes. The following article in the decreta of Pope Alexander, printed in the History of Henry of Huntingdon (Scriptores post Bedam, fol. 1601), p. 589, which one would think must have passed under his eyes, left little room for doubt;—
“Ne clerici in sacris ordinibus constituti focarias habeant.
“Clerici in sacris ordinibus constituti, qui mulierculas in domibus suis sub incontinentiæ nota tenuerint, aut abjiciant eas et continenter vivant, aut beneficio et officio fiant ecclesiastico alieni.”
In the statutes of Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, MS. Cotton. Julius D. II. fol. 167, ro, we find also a chapter—
“De focariis amovendis.
“Sacerdotibus vero præcipue et spiritualiter in virtute Spiritus Sancti et sub periculo beneficii districte præcipimus quod continenter vivant et honeste, concubinas suas a domibus suis procul expellant, et nullam familiaritatem cum eis de cætero habeant, nec in propriis domibus nec in alienis, nisi volunt simul beneficiis et officiis contra hoc agendo privari,” etc.