[P. 186], l. 11, de fust manger (de fusto manducare).—In low Latin, fustum was a generic name for everything made of wood. It need hardly be said that it means here the plates and other utensils of the table, which among the lower classes were generally of this material. It would be more reasonable, says the writer of the song, if the court would eat out of wooden vessels, and pay for their provisions with silver, than to live sumptuously with plate, and only pay their victuals with wooden tallies.
—— l. 13, Est vitii signum pro victu solvere lignum.—The King’s purveyors were a great grievance to the peasantry. In the curious poem of “King Edward and the Shepherd” (printed by Hartshorne from a MS. in the University Library, Cambridge), the latter personage is made to say:—
“In Wynsour was I borne;
Hit is a myle but here beforne,
The town then maist thou see.
I am so pyled with the Kyng,
That I most fle fro my wonyng,
And therefore woo is me.
I hade catell, now have I non;
Thay take my bestis, and don thaim slon,