[P. 338], l. 330, Theih pleien wid the hinges silver, and breden wod for wele.—They use the king’s silver for their own pleasures, and produce wood, or tallies, instead of contributing to the prosperity of the people.
[P. 341], l. 392, a derthe.—l. 403, eft wele i-nouh.—P. 342, l. 409, another sorwe.—l. 416, another derthe of corn.—Our poem was probably composed in 1321. During the preceding years, the kingdom had been visited repeatedly by dearth and famine. Holinshed remarks in 1316, a great dearth and famine, insomuch that a quarter of wheat sold for forty shillings, and at the same time a murrain among the cattle; in 1317, a “pitiful famine” with a “sore mortalitie of people;” the year 1318 seems to have been free from these visitations, and may have been that in which, according to the poem, there was “eft wele i-nouh;” in 1319, again, a great murrain of cattle; and in the latter end of the following year and in 1321, broke out the “great variaunce betwixt the lords and the Spensers,” which was the cause of so much bloodshed, and which seems to be the “strif” (l. 423) under which the poet represents the people as then labouring.
[P. 342], l. 418, afingred.—For other instances of the use of this form, see a note on “The Tale of the Basyn and the Frere and the Boy.” (Pickering, 1836.)
[P. 344], l. 457, paunter.—The true meaning of this word seems to be a trap, or snare. An English prose treatise of counsel for hermits, probably by Hampole (MS. Trin. Coll. Cant. B. 15, 17, of the reign of Edward III.), speaking of the snares laid by the devil to deceive people, observes, “This panter leyeth owre enemy to taken us with, whan we bigynne to haten wikkednesse, and turne us to goodnesse.”
[P. 345].—This poem is defective at the end, by the loss of the remainder of the MS., which is imperfect. The following curious Song, which was given me by Mr. Halliwell, bears a remarkable resemblance in some parts to the English poem of the Auchinleck MS. It is taken from a MS. in the University Library, Cambridge, Ee. VI. 29, of the beginning of the fifteenth century, though most, if not all, the articles it contains are compositions of a much earlier date.
Ecce dolet Anglia luctibus imbuta!
Gens tremit tristitia, sordibus polluta;
Necat pestilentia viros atque bruta.
Cur? quia flagitia regnant resoluta.