architrave, the lower part of the entablature, that which rests immediately on the column. To understand the line, it must be remembered that the tower is conceived as a ruin.
alleux, a feudal term, signifying hereditary property. The word is misused here in the sense of feudal dues.
censive. Another feudal term, meaning the dues owed by an estate to the lord of whom it was held.
balistes (from Latin ballista), mediaeval machines for hurling stones and darts.
le puits d'une sachette, a hole in which a recluse lived. Sachette (masc. sachet) was the name given to certain nuns of the Augustinian order who wore a loose woollen garment (sac), whence the name was derived. It afterwards became used of any recluse. In Notre-Dame de Paris Hugo applies it to the half-crazy inhabitant of the Tour-Roland.
cruzade, an old Portuguese coin, so called because it was marked with a cross. There was an old cruzade worth about 3 fr. 30, and a new cruzade worth not quite 3 fr.
Narse, or Narses, was king of Persia A.D. 294-303.
Tigrane, the name of an Armenian, not a Persian dynasty. There were seven kings of this name, and they occupied the Armenian throne from 565 to 161 B.C.
nonce. This word is in strictness used only of the emissaries of the Pope. Its use in any sense is an anachronism, as it was not introduced till the sixteenth century.
Ratbert is thus described at the beginning of the poem:—