Page 24.—A willow grows aslant a brook. See Hamlet, iv. 7. 165. Some editions of Shakespeare follow the reading of the early quartos, "ascaunt the brook," which means the same. This willow (the Salix alba) grows on the banks of the Avon, and from the looseness of the soil the trees often partly lose their hold, and bend "aslant" the stream.
Page 26.—The banished Duke in As You Like It, etc. See the play, ii. 1. 1–18.
His maidens ever sing of "blue-veined violets," etc. The "blue-vein'd violets" are mentioned in Venus and Adonis, 125; the "daisies pied" (variegated), and the "lady-smocks all silver-white," in Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 904, 905; and the "pansies" in Hamlet, iv. 5. 176.
Page 27.—A manor of the Bishop of Worcester. Under the feudal system, a manor was a landed estate, with a village or villages upon it the inhabitants of which were generally villeins, or serfs of the owner or lord. These villeins were either regardant or in gross. The former "belonged to the manor as fixtures, passing with it when it was conveyed or inherited, and they could not be sold or transferred as persons separate from the land"; the latter "belonged personally to their lord, who could sell or transfer them at will." The bordarii, bordars, or cottagers, "seem to have been distinguished from the villeins simply by their smaller holdings." For the menial services rendered by the villeins, and their condition generally, see the following pages.
Page 32.—A chantry. A church or a chapel (as here) endowed with lands or other revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests to sing or say mass daily for the soul of the donor or the souls of persons named by him. Cf. Henry V. iv. 1. 318:—
"I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul."
Page 40.—Present her at the leet, etc. Complain of her for using common stone jugs instead of the quart-pots duly sealed or stamped as being of legal size.