clerk: a clergyman, a scholar, because in early times all learning was confined to the clergy.
[19. THE PILGRIMS.]
ague: a fever coming on at intervals, with fits of shivering.
isolation: living away from outside communication, a lonely position like that of men on an island cut off from the rest of the world.
Flemings: the people of Flanders, a district now comprising parts of Belgium, South Holland, and North France.
Walsingham: a place in the north of Norfolk, where was a famous shrine.
Glastonbury: a small town near Wells, in Somersetshire.
Compostella: a place in Spain where is the shrine of St. James, the patron saint of Spain.
Chaucer: the great early English poet, born in London 1328, died 1400.