Me. That I ought to take care of them myself, the Holy Scriptures instruct me; but I have never read the commandment, that I should entrust them to the saints!

Est qui Hierosolymam, Romam, aut Divum Jacobum adeat, ubi nihil est illi negotii, domi relictis cum uxore liberis.

DES. ERASMI More Encomium.

NOTES.

(1) Covered with scallop-shells.

No symbol of pilgrimage is better known than the scallop-shell; so that no modern artist or costumier would think of representing a pilgrim without this appurtenance. Thus in a masquerade before queen Elizabeth a pilgrim was "clad in a coat of russet yelvet, fashioned to his call, his hat being of the same, with scallop-shells of cloth of silver." The prototype of such designs seems to have been the image of Saint James himself, who was generally represented in this attire, though in Spain he appears as an armed cavalier. Fuller, indeed, in his Holy War, asserts that the escallop-shells were assumed because used for cups and dishes by the pilgrims in Palestine; and he derives the armorial bearings of Villiers,—a cross charged with escallops, from the Crusades. But, from what is said by our own author, and by other older authorities, it would seem that the escallop-shell was peculiar to Com

postella. Piers Plowman especially names the "shelles of Galice." What is still more decisive, Alexander III Gregory IX. and Clement V. by their bulls granted to the archbishops of Compostella a faculty to excommunicate all persons who should sell these shells to pilgrims anywhere except in that city.

(2) Stuck all over with tin and leaden images.

Not only the hat, but all parts of the dress, of the returning pilgrim, had these memorials fixed upon them. The pilgrim in Piers Plowman wore

An hundred of ampulles*

On his hat seten,

Signes of Synay,

And shelles of Galice,

And many a crouche on his cloak,

* The "ampulles" were probably brought from Rheims, where the kings of France were usually crowned, and anointed from the sainte ampoulle there preserved. Philip de Commines, speaking of the death-bed of Louis XI. says that the Holy Vial of Rheims, which had never been removed before, was brought to his chamber at Plessis, and stood when he died upon the head of his cupboard, for he intended to be anointed with it again, as he had been at his coronation. "Some were of opinion," adds Commines, "that he intended to have anointed himself all over; but that was not likely, for the vial was but small, and no great store of oil in it. I saw it myself at the time I speak of."

And keyes of Rome,

And the vernycle bi-fore,
For men should know

And se bi hise signes

Whom he sought hadde.

Chaucer's pardoner, to show he had come from Rome, A vernicle hadde he sowed upon his cappe;

being a memorial of the Saviour's portrait impressed on an handkerchief, exhibited at St. Peter's.

The course of proceeding at Canterbury is minutely described by the continuator of Chaucer, and the intention specified in terms remarkably similar to those alleged by Piers Plowman. After all their devotions had been duly performed at the shrine,

Then, as manere and custom is, signes there they bought,
For men of contré should know whome they had sought,
Eche man set his silver in such thing as they liked.

And in the meen while the miller had y-piked
His bosom ful of signys of Caunterbury brochis,
Though the pardoner and he pryvely in her pouches
They put them afterwards that noon of them it wist.

Afterwards, on going to dinner,—

They set their signys upon their hedes, and some oppon their сарр,

And sith to the dyner-ward they gan for to stapp.

The custom had commenced even in the time of Giraldus Cambrensis, who in his early life was a contemporary of the martyred archbishop. Describing an in