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England, had greatly weakened the Pope's influence in this country. Upon the death of Gregory XI., in 1378, the Romans, weary of French Popes, elected an Italian, who became Pope as Urban VI. Against him was presently set up a Frenchman as Clement VII.; and so there were two discordant heads of the Church-one at Rome and one at Avignoneach claiming infallibility. Wiclif's conflict with the Papacy now passed to open war. "Trust we,"

he said, "in the help of Christ, for He hath begun already to help us graciously, in that He hath cloven the head of Antichrist and made the two parts fight against each other; for it cannot be doubtful that the sin of the Popes, which hath so long continued, hath brought in the division." This he wrote in a treatise on the schism, called the "Schisma Papæ," and about the same time he produced a treatise on the "Truth and Meaning of Scripture," in which he maintained the right of private judgment, asserted the supreme authority and the sufficiency of Scripture, and the need of a Bible in English.

While the supreme authority maintained that an admitted right of private judgment would lead many to heresy and peril of their souls, and that Holy Scripture in the language of the people, open to interpretation by the ignorant, would diffuse the error from which men were saved by the intervention of well-taught interpreters, the people of this country had, as we have seen, made fullest use of all permitted means of access to the Bible. Since it was lawful to translate the book of Psalms, that book had several translators. Of a metrical Psalter in Transition English of the North of England, in the thirteenth century, which was edited in 1845 by Mr. Joseph Stevenson, for the Surtees Society, in the same volume with a First-English Psalter, this will serve as a specimen :

PSALM LXVII.

God milthe1 of us, and blis us thus;
Light over us his face, and milthe us.
That we knowe in erthe thi wai,
In alle genge thi heling ai.3
Schriven to the, God, folke be;
Schriven alle folke be to the.

Faine and glade genge, mare and lesse,
For thou demes' folke in evennesse;
And genge in erthe with thi might

Steres thou, that thai do right.

Schriven to the, God, be folke; al folke to the schrive.

The erthe gaf his fruite bilive.

Blisse us, God; our God us blisse

And drede him all endes of erthe thisse.

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and wrote Southern English. I take the 22nd Psalm in this version as an example :—

PSALM XXIII.

Our Lord governeth me, and nothing shall defailen to me, in the stede of pasture he sett me ther.

He norissed me up water of fyllynge; he turned my soule from the fende.

He lad me up the bistiges of rigtfulnes; for his name. For gif that ich have gon amiddes of the shadowe of deth; Y shal nougt douten iuels, for thou art wyth me.

Thy discipline and thyn amendyng; conforted me. Thou madest radi grace in my sight; ogayns hem that trublen me. Thou makest fatt myn heued wyth mercy; and my drynke makand drunken ys ful clere.

And thy merci shal folwen me; alle daies of mi lif: And that ich wonnes in the hous of our Lord, in lengthe of daies.

The next English prose version of the Psalms was that of Richard Rolle, the Hermit of Hampole, author of "The Prick of Conscience," already mentioned. He made his translation at the request of Dame Margaret Kirkby, of the Nunnery at Hampole. Of Richard Rolle's translation this is a specimen :—

PSALM LXXIX.

God, folkis come in to thyn heritage, thei defouledyn thin hooli temple; thei setten Jerusalem in to kepyng of applis. Thei settyn the deede bodies of thi seruauntis meete to the foulis of heuene; fleische of thyn halowis to beestis of erthe. Thei heeld 10 out the bloode of hem as watir in the cumpas fo Jerusalem; and there was not to birye hem.

We ben maad repreef to our neigboris; scoornynge and hethyng" to alle that ben in oure cumpas.

Hou longe, Lord, schal thou be wroth in to the eende; thi loue as fijr schal be kyndlid.

Heeld out thyn yre in to folkis that knewen thee not; and in to rewmys that han not inclepid thi name.

There are many variations in the manuscripts of Richard Rolle's translation of the Psalms.

In the religious house of Llanthony, in Monmouthshire, there was in the twelfth century a monk named Clement, who wrote in Latin a Monotessaron, "Harmony of the Gospels." Wiclif's earlier work on what seemed to him signs of the coming end of the world, The Last Age of the Church," perhaps suggested to him the Commentary on the Apocalypse, with which his work upon the Bible-text may have begun. He may then have written Commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and

Lad, led.

66

7 Bistiges, paths. First-English "stig," a path. An italic 9 stands here for the softened g, represented in Transition English by a modified letter like 3. Such a g disappears or becomes y or gh in modern English.

8 Wonne, dwell. First-English "wunian."

• Halowis, saints. First-English "halga," from "halig," holy. 10 Heeld, poured. Icelandic "hella," to pour out. So in Wielif's translation of Mark's Gospel, "No man sendith newe wyn in-to oold botelis, ellis the wyn shal berste the wyn-vesselis, and the wyn shall be held out."

Hethyng, scoff. Icelandic "hætha," to scoff at; "hæthing," a scoting.

John; but his authorship of these is doubtful. In the Prologue to the Commentary upon Matthew's Gospel, their compiler strongly urged that the whole Scriptures ought to be translated into English. His Commentaries included the text they explained, and their method is set forth by himself in this passage of his Prologue to the Commentary upon Luke :—

"Herefore a poor caitiff1 letted from preaching for a time for causes known of God, writeth the Gospel of Luke in English, with a short exposition of old and holy doctors, to the poor men of his nation which cunnen little Latin either none, and ben poor of wit and of worldly catel, and natheless rich of goodwill to please God. First this poor caitiff setteth a full sentence of the text together, that it may well be known from the exposition; afterwards he setteth a sentence of a doctor declaring the text; and in the end of the sentence he setteth the doctor's name, that men mowen know verily how far his sentence goeth. Only the text of the Holy Writ, and sentence of old doctors and approved, ben set in this exposition."

While Wiclif was at work, another writer, whose name is unknown, but whose English is of the North of England, produced Commentaries upon Matthew, Mark, and Luke, executed upon the same principle. This writer said in his preface to the Commentary on Matthew:

"Here begins the exposition of St. Matthew after the chapters that ben set in the Bible, the chapters of which Gospel ben eight-and-twenty.

"This work some time I was stirred to begin of one that I suppose verily was God's servant, and ofttimes prayed me this work to begin; sayand to me, that sethin the Gospel is rule, by the whilk each Christian man owes to life, divers has drawen it into Latin, the whilk tongue is not knowen to ilk man, but only to the lered, and many lewd men are that gladly would con the Gospel if it were drawen into English tongue, and so it should do great profit to man soul, about the whilk profit ilk man that is in the grace of God, and to whom God has sent conning, owes heartily to busy him. Wherefore I that through the grace of God began this work, so stirred, as I have said before, by such word, thought in my heart that I was holden by charity this work to begin; and so this work I began at the suggestion of God's servant. And greatly in this doing I was comforted of other of God's servants divers, to such time that through the grace of God I brought this to an end. In the whilk outdrawing I set not of mine head, nor of mine own fantasy, but as I found in other expositors."

Another unknown worker made a version of St. Paul's Epistles into Latin and English. To Wiclif is ascribed a translation into English of Clement of Llanthony's "Harmony of the Gospels," and then, by separating the text from the annotation in his Commentaries, he is said to have produced complete English versions of the separate Gospels. Wiclif himself is believed to have been also the translator of

1 Mr. Thomas Arnold argues, among other things in opposition to Wiclif's authorship of the Commentary, that he could hardly have called himself a "poor caitiff," and that he was never "letted from preaching."

2 Ores to life, ought to live.

the Acts of the Apostles, and of the Epistles, as well as of the Apocalypse.

-one

The chief translator in Wiclif's time of the books of the Old Testament was Nicholas of Hereford. The original copy of his English version of the Old Testament is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, corrected throughout by a contemporary hand. A second copy in the Bodleian is a transcript made from the first before it was corrected, and it is in this early transcript that the translation is said to have been made by Nicholas de Hereford. This Nicholas was a Doctor of Divinity in Queen's College, Oxford, and was in 1382-two years before Wiclif's deathof the Lollard leaders in the University. On Ascension Day in that year he preached at St. Frides wide's by order of the Chancellor. A few days later, on the 18th of May, he was cited before a synod of Dominicans at London, and on the 20th he delivered a paper containing his opinions. On the 1st of July, at an adjourned meeting in Canterbury, he was excommunicated. He appealed to the Pope, went, it is said, to Rome, and was there imprisoned. Released with other prisoners during an insurrection, he came to England, where, in January, 1386, he was committed to prison for life by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In August, 1387, he was free, and aiding Reformation. In October, 1393, he was present when Walter Brute, of Hereford, was charged with heresy. In February, 1394, he was made Chancellor of the Cathedral at Hereford, and in March, 1397, he became Treasurer of the Cathedral. He was an old man when he resigned that office, in 1417, and joined the Carthusians of St. Anne's, at Coventry, among whom he died. This is a piece of his Old Testament translation :

:

PSALM LXVII.

God have merci of vs, and blisse to vs, ligte to his chere vpon vs; and haue mercy of vs. That wee knowe in the erthe thi weie; in alle jentilis thi helthe givere. Knouleche to thee puplis, God; knouleche to thee alle puplis. Gladen and ful out ioge jentilis, for thou demest pupils in equite; and jentilis in the erthe thou dressist. Knouleche to thee puplis, God, knouleche to thee alle puplis; the erthe gaf his frut. Blesse vs God, oure God, blesse us God; and drede him alle the coostus of erthe.

And here is a specimen of Wiclif's New Testament translation. It is from

MATTHEW'S GOSPEL-CHAPTER VI.

Take 3ee3 hede, lest 3e don 3our ri3twisnesse before men, that gee be seen of hem, ellis 3e shule nat han meed at 30ure fadir that is in heuenes. Therfore when thou dost almesse,

nyle thou synge byfore thee in a trumpe, as ypocritis don in synagogis and streetis, that thei ben maad worshipful of men; forsothe Y saye to 3ou, thei han resceyued her meede. But thee doynge almesse, knowe nat the left hond what thi rizt

33ee. The character at the beginning of this word is here used throughout for the soft g, which it resembles. It is not z. (See Note 2, page 49.)

hond doth, that thi almes be in hidlis, and thi fadir that seeth in hidlis, shal 3elde to thee. And when 3e shuln preye, 3ee shuln nat be as ypocritis, the whiche stondynge louen to preye in synagogis and corners of streetis, that thei be seen of men; trewly Y say to 3ou, thei han resseyued her meede. But whan thou shalt preye, entre in to thi couche, and the dore schet, preye thi fadir in hidlis, and thi fadir that seeth in hidlis, shal geelde to thee. Sothely preyinge nyle 3ee speke moche, as hethen men don, for thei gessen that thei ben herd in theire moche speche. Therfore nyl 3e be maad liche to hem, for 30ure fadir woot what is need to 30u, before that 3e axen hym. Forsothe thus 3e shulen preyen, Oure fadir that art in heuenes, halwid be thi name; thi kyngdom cumme to; be thi wille don as in heuen and in erthe; 3if to vs this day oure breed oure other substaunce; and for3eue to vs oure dettis, as we forgeue to oure dettours; and leede vs nat in to temptacioun, but delyuere vs fro yuel. Amen. Forsothe zif 3ee shulen for3eue to men her synns, and2 3oure heuenly fadir shal for3eue to 3ou 30ure trespassis. Sothely 3if 3ee shulen forzeue not to men, neither 30ure fadir shal forgeue to 30u 30ure synnes. But when зee fasten, nyl 3e be maad as ypocritis sorweful, for thei putten her facis out of kyndly termys, that thei seme fastynge to men; trewly Y say to 30u, thei han resseyued her meede. But whan thou fastist, anoynte thin hede, and washe thi face, that thou be nat seen fastynge to men, but to thi fadir that is in hidlis, and thi fadir that seeth in hidlis, shal geelde to thee. Nyle 3e tresoure to 30u tresours in erthe, wher rust and mou3the distruyeth, and wher theeues deluen out and stelen; but tresoure 3ee to 30u tresouris in heuene, wher neither rust ne mouзthe distruyeth, and wher theues deluen nat out, ne stelen. Forsothe wher thi tresour is there and thin herte is. The lanterne of thi body is thin eze; 3if thin eize be symple, al thi body shal be li3tful; bot 3if thyn eize be weyward, al thi body shal be derkful. Therfore 3if the list that is in thee be derknessis, how grete shulen thilk derknessis be? No man may serue to two lordis, forsothe ethir he shal haat the toon, and loue the tother; other he shal susteyn the toon, and dispise the tothir. 30 mown nat serue to God and richessis. Therfore Y say to 30u, that ze ben nat besie to 30ure lijf, what 3e shulen ete; othir to 30ure body, with what 3e shuln be clothid. Wher3 30ure lijf is nat more than mete, and the body more than clothe? Beholde 3e the fleezinge foulis of the eir, for thei sowen nat, ne repyn, neither gadren in to bernys; and 30ure fadir of heuen fedith hem. Wher 3e ben nat more worthi than thei? Sothely who of 3ou thenkinge may putte to to his stature oo cubite? And of clothing what ben 3e besye? Beholde 30 the lilies of the feelde, how thei wexen. Thei traueilen nat, nether spynnen. Trewly I say to 30u, for whi neither Salamon in al his glorie was keuerid as oon of thes. For 3if God clothith thus the heye of the feeld, that to day is, and to morwe is sente in to the fourneyse, how moche more 3ou of litil feith? Therfore nyl 3e be bisie, sayinge, What shulen we ete? or, What shulen we drynke? or, With what thing shulen we be keuered? Forsothe heithen men sechen alle these thingis; trewly 30ure fadir wote that 3e han need to alle these thingis. Therfore seke 3ee first the kyngdam of God and his ri3twisnesse, and alle these thingis shulen be cast to 3ou. Therfore nyle 3e be besie in to the morwe, for the morew day shal be besie to it self; sothely it sufficith to the day his malice.

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In the last years of his life, after he had secured a translation of the whole Bible into English by himself and his fellow-workers, Wiclif wrote many English tracts on the religious questions of the day; and his labour for Reformation, that had begun with the corruptions of Church discipline, included more argument against what he held to be corruptions of Church doctrine, especially upon the old question of the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Sacrament. In 1381 he issued twelve propositions against the doctrine of transubstantiation. In 1382, the London Dominicans, or Black Friars, as custodians of orthodox opinion, condemned as heretical twenty-four conclusions drawn from Dr. Wiclif's writings. Apparently in reply to this came the tract setting forth "Fifty Heresies and Errors of Friars," ascribed to Wiclif, and probably his, but perhaps by one of his followers. Wiclif was then banished from the University, and in 1384 was summoned to appear before the Pope; but on the last day of that year he died.

Of the personal appearance of the first great English Church Reformer there are only two records. One

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is the portrait, said to have been by Sir Antonio More, which Dr. Thomas Zouch, Rector of Wycliffe, in Yorkshire, gave to the rectory in 1796, to be preserved by the rectors who should succeed him, as an heirloom of the rectory house. A copy of it is at the commencement of this chapter. The other record, perhaps more trustworthy, is a woodcut portrait which appeared in the first edition, published in 1548, and only in that first edition, of John Bale's "Centuries of the Illustrious Writers of Great Britain."

A noble edition of Wiclif's Bible was published by the University of Oxford in 1850: "The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Version made from the Latin Vulgate, by John Wycliffe and his Followers. Edited by the Rev. Josiah Forshall, F.R S., &c, late Fellow of Exeter College, and Sir Frederick Madden, K H., FR.S, &c., Keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum. Oxford University Press."

This is well executed, and except woodcuts of Bale himself presenting his book to Edward VI., it is the only portrait in the volume. The publisher of that edition must, therefore, have valued it as a copy from some trustworthy original which is not now to be found. The picture ascribed to Sir Antonio More must also have been copied from a portrait now lost, and there is likeness enough between the two.

Fellow-worker and contemporary with John Wiclif was William Langland. His religious poem called "The Vision of Piers Plowman" was addressed to

the whole body of the English people, and dealt earnestly with the material condition of the country, so far as that concerned its spiritual life. It was in the old English form of alliterative verse, and had a vocabulary rich, not only by the acquisition of new words from the Norman-French, but by the retention of old English words which had already become obsolete in the cultivated English of the towns, though still familiar among the people. Its popular English-English rather of the country than of the town-includes, in fact, so many words of which the disuse has, by this time, become general, that "The Vision of Piers Plowman" is now to be read less easily than contemporary verse of Chaucer's, and to modern eyes looks older for that which gave it, in the ears of those for whom it was written, the ease of homeliness. It was not the homeliness of an ill-taught rusticity, but of an educated man of genius who loved God and his country, and laboured to litt many eyes from amidst the troubles of those times to Christ, typified by the Plowman of whom he told his Vision. "} "The Vision of Piers Plowman deserves European fame as one of the great poems of the fourteenth century; but it is enough for Langland if, after many years, his own countrymen shall still hold him in memory, and honour him because they share the spirit of his work.

William Langland' may have been born, as John Bale says that he was, at Cleobury Mortimer, in Shropshire, or, as a fifteenth-century note on one MS. of his poems says that he was, at Shiptonunder-Wychwood, four miles from Burford, in Oxfordshire, the son of a freeman named Stacy de Rokayle, who lived there as a tenant under Lord le Spenser. Upon one MS. he is called William W., which may possibly mean William de Wychwood. In a part of his poem which contains a reference to the accession of Richard II. in 1377, Langland seems to speak of his own age as forty-five :

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1 Bale, in his Latin "Centuries of the Illustrious Writers of Great Britain," called him Robert Langland, born at Cleobury Mortimer, in the clayland, and within eight miles of Malvern Mills. But earlier than this sixteenth-century evidence of a writer who abounds in errors, is the evidence of the titles of MSS. which always call him William, of the author's own use of "Will" when he speaks of himself, and of a record on a Dublin MS. in a hand of the fifteenth century, which describes him as William of Langland, son of Stacy de Rokayle.

Malvern, and then seems to have been engaged in that house upon offices of the Church. His Vision was represented as occurring to him while he slept from time to time on Malvern Hills. The opening lines may be variously interpreted :

"In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne
I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were,
In habit as an heremite unholy of workes,
Went wyde in this world wondres to here."

Shepe here is said to mean shepherd, and William is supposed to have put on a shepherd's dress, which resembled that of a hermit. Hermit "unholy of

works" was paraphrased by Dr. Whitaker as meaning "not like an anchorite who keeps his cell, but like one of those unholy hermits who wander about the world to see and hear wonders," and some such sense of depreciation is usually given to the phrase. I think that "shepe" means sheep, as the opposite to shepherd; and that William on a summer's day put off the clerical dress that marked his place among the pastors, made himself as one of the flock, in habit of a heremite, a man given to contemplation in the wilderness,-for Malvern Hills were then a famous wilderness; and so to William's mind was the wide world. He took the form of a man devoting himself to lonely thought, who was "unholy of works," because he made himself as one of the flock, not of the pastors, thinking and feeling as one of the people of England, and as if he were not vowed to the sole contemplation of God. I do not suppose unholy to have any bad sense, but to mean only that William made himself, for the purpose of the poem, as one of the people, and put aside for a time his work as of one in holy orders. That he was incorporated in some way with the great religious house at Malvern is made the more probable by the account he in later life of his means of subsistence when gave living in Cornhill with Kit his wife :

"And ich lyue in London and on London both
The lomes that ich laboure with and lyflode3 deserve
Ys pater-noster and my prymer, placebo and dirige,
And my sauter som tyme and my seuene psalmes.
Thus ich synge for hure soules of suche as me helpen
And tho that fynden me my fode."

The freedom with which William Langland entered into the new spirit of reformation stayed, no doubt, his advancement in the Church. Such a man as a married priest, with a wife Kit and Calot a daughter, might live in London and on London by the help of those who shared his aspirations and could lighten the burden of his daily life; but he had entirely turned his back upon the race for Church preferment, and had indeed, in the eyes of the Church superiors, "shope himself in shroudes as he a shepe were, in habit as an heremite unholy of workes." He had gone out into the wilderness that he might tell us of

2 Lomes, utensils. First-English "lóma" and "gelóma," household stuff, utensils, furniture, stock, store.

3 Lyflode (First-English "lifláde "), maintenance, livelihood. • Tho, those.

the solemn voices that he heard through all the noise and babble of the world.

Langland's poem rose out of almost his whole life as a man. He began it about the year 1362, when he was not older than thirty. He was thoroughly revising it about the year 1377, when his age was forty-five, and he continued to revise and enlarge it during the next twenty years. The numerous MSS. which attest the great popularity of the poem represent it in three forms, corresponding to these stages of its development-first in eleven passus, or divisions; then in twenty; then in twenty-three. It was from a MS. of the second form that Robert Crowley, dwelling in Ely Rents in Holborn (he was Vicar of St. Giles's, Cripplegate), first printed "The Vision of Piers Plowman," in 1550, in a quarto volume of 250 pages. It was published to assist, by its true voice, the great effort made towards reformation in the reign of Edward VI., and so heartily welcomed that there were three editions of the poem at this date. It was again printed by Reginald Wolfe in 1553; and, after the interval of Mary's reign, again by Owen Rogers in 1561. But Langland's work was known to very few when, in 1813, Dr. Thomas Dunham Whitaker printed an edition of it from a MS. of the third and latest type. It was edited again by Mr. Thomas Wright, in 1842 and 1856, the latter edition being a most convenient and accessible one, forming two volumes of a "Library of Old English Authors." 1 Mr. Wright's edition was from a MS. giving a form of the poem similar to that published by Robert Crowley; and in 1867, 1869, and 1873, each of the three forms of the MSS. of "Piers Plowman" was represented, with collation of all the best of the three dozen MS. texts, in editions prepared by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, for the Early-English Text Society."

Wandering over Malvern Hills on a May morning, William became weary. He lay down and slept upon the grass. Then he saw in a dream-first of the series of dreams that form his Vision-"all the wealth of this world, and the woe both." Between the sunrise, where rose in the east the Tower of Truth, and the sunset, where Death dwelt in a deep dale,

"A fair field full of folk found I there between,
All manner of men, the mean and the rich,
Working and wandering as the world asketh."

1 The "Library of Old English Authors," published by J. R. Smith. Soho Square, has already been referred to as containing in three of its five-shilling volumes Sir Thomas Malory's "History of King Arthur." It is a series of good handy editions of books of real worth.

2 Mr. Skeat's work upon Langland's great poem is singularly thorough. He publishes, with a special introduction, each of its three forms separately, from collation of the MSS., with various readings and reference to the MS. containing each. A fourth section is assigned to the General Introduction, Notes and Index. Besides this work on the whole poem, Mr. Skeat has contributed to the Clarendon Press Series the first seven passus-"The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, by William Langland, accordng to the version revised and enlarged by the author about A.D. 1377," with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary, as an aid to the right study of Early English in colleges and schools, and also as a most efficient guide to the reading of the whole poem by those to whom its English, without such help, would be obscure. Mr. Skeat's thorough study of the poem from all points of view makes him our chief authority in any question concerning it.

Some put themselves to the plough, took little rest, and earned that which the wasters destroy by their gluttony. Some put themselves to pride, and clothed themselves thereafter in many a guise. Many put themselves to prayer and penance, living hard lives for the love of our Lord, in hope to have a good end, and bliss in heaven. Some lived by trade; and some by minstrelsy, avoiding labour, swearing great oaths, and inventors of foul fancies, making themselves fools, though they have wit at will to work if they would. Beggars were there with full bags, brawling and gluttonous; pilgrims and palmers who went to St. James of Compostella and the saints of Rome, and had leave to tell lies all their lives after. Long lubbers made pilgrimages to our Lady of Walsingham,3 clothed themselves in copes to be known from other men,

"And made themselves Hermits, their ease to have.
I found there Friars, all the four orders, 4
Preaching the people for profit of the wam
And glosing the Gospel as them good liked.

There preached a Pardoner, as he a Priest were,
And brought forth a bull with bishop's seals,
And said that himself might assoil them all
Of falseness of fastings, of vows to-broke.
Lewéd men lieved him well, and likeden his words,
Comen and kneleden, to kissen his bulls.

He blessed them with his brevet,10 and bleared" their eyne

3 Our Lady of Walsingham. The shrine of the Virgin Mary in the monastery of the Augustinian Canons at Walsingham, in Norfolk (twenty-seven miles N.W. of Norwich), attracted very many pilgrims. Norfolk people said that the Milky-way pointed to it, and was Walsingham-way. The monastery was founded in the eleventh century by Geoffrey de Taverche. Henry VIII. in the second year of his reign walked barefoot from the village of Barsham to the shrine at Walsingham, but afterwards he caused the image of Our Lady to be burnt at Chelsea. The ruins are now a lofty arch, sixty feet high, some cloister and another arch, a stone bath, and the two Wishing Wells. Any pilgrim allowed to drink of their water had his wish.

• Friars, all the four orders. Grey Friars (Franciscans or Minorites); Black Friars (Dominicans); White Friars (Carmelites); Austin Friars (Augustines). The foundation of the Grey and Black Friars has been described (see pages 52, 53). The Carmelites claimed Elijah for their founder. They were established in the twelfth century by Berthold, a Calabrian, who went to the Holy Land and formed a hermit community on Mount Carmel, the traditional abode of Elijah. Pressed out by the Saracens in 1238, they spread over Europe, and had in Langland's time about forty houses in England and Wales The Austin Friars followed the Rule of St. Augustine, prescribed by Pope Alexander IV. in 1256.

5 Wam, womb. First English "wamb," the belly.

6 Glosing, commenting on, interpreting.

7 Lieved, believed. First-English "lýfan," to allow.

8 Bulls were so called from the seals attached. The round official seal of stamped lead attached to the document was called bulla from its roundness. This is one of a class of mimetic words said to origi. nate in the roundness, or of the motion of the bubbles in a boiling pot. Bull or ball, from the roundness of the bubble. Ballot, a little ball; balloon, a great one. Ballare, to dance from the movement of boiling, whence ball, a dance; ballet, a little dance. So ballads were probably named from the old custom of swaying to and fro in various ways, accordant to the mood expressed by the reciter.

Blessed. Another MS. has bonched, hammered at. Icelandic "banga," to hammer, whence the common English form "to bang," and a provincial form "to bunch," meaning to strike.

10 Brevet, letter of indulgence. A short official letter. Old French "brievet," from Latin "breve," like English and German "brief." So also in Icelandic "bref " meant a letter and a written deed, or official despatch, in which last sense (according to Cleasby and Vigfusson' the word first occurs in the negotiation between Norway and Sweden, A.D. 1018.

11 Bleared, made dim. This is not the word bleared applied to eyes

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