His purchasyng might nought ben to him suspecte. And yit he semed besier than he was. That fro the tyme of kyng Will. were falle. Ther couthe no man pynche at his writyng. wyn. A FRANKELEYN ther was in his companye; An househaldere, and that a gret, was he; Seynt Julian he was in his countré. His breed, his ale, was alway after oon; A bettre envyned man was nowher noon. 312. St. Julian was the patron of hospitality. 323 331 339 347 He chaunged hem at mete and at soper. Heng at his gerdul, whit as morne mylk. An HABURDASSHER and a CARPENTER, 350 360 370 352.—in stewe; i. e., in a fish-pond. The great consumption of fish under the Romish regime rendered a fish-pond a necessary accessory to every gentleman's house. 355.-table dormant. Probably the fixed table at the end of the hall. C For catel hadde they inough and rente, And han a mantel rially i-bore. A Cook thei hadde with hem for the nones, And poudre marchant, tart, and galyngale. 380 A SCHIPMAN was ther, wonyng fer by weste: 390 For ought I woot, he was of Dertemouthe. Aboute his nekke under his arm adoun. Ful many a draught of wyn had he drawe 384-London ale. Tyrwhitt has cited a passage of an old writer, which shews that London ale was prized above that of other parts of the country. 396.-the hoote somer. Perhaps this is a reference to the summer of the year 1351, which was long remembered as the dry and hot summer. Other allusions in this general prologue seem to shew that Chaucer intended to lay the plot of his Canterbury pilgrimage soon after this date. From Burdeux-ward, whil that the chapman sleep. Of nyce conscience took he no keep. If that he foughte, and hadde the heigher hand, With many a tempest hadde his berd ben schake. Ther was also a DocTOUR OF PHIsik, Of his ymages for his pacient. He knew the cause of every maladye, Were it of cold, or hete, or moyst, or drye, 400 410 420 410. Scotland. Most of the MSS. have Gotland, the reading adopted by Tyrwhitt, and perhaps the correct one. 416.-Astronomye. A great portion of the medical science of the middle ages depended on astrological and other superstitious observ ances. 417.—a ful gret del. This is the reading of most of the MSS.; the MS. Harl. has wondurly wel. And where thei engendrid, and of what humour; The cause i-knowe, and of his harm the roote, And Deiscorides, and eeke Rufus; But of gret norisching and digestible. His studie was but litel on the Bible. 430 440 431.-Wel knew he. The authors mentioned here were the chief medical text-books of the middle ages. Rufus was a Greek physician, of Ephesus, of the age of Trajan; Haly, Serapion, and Avicen, were Arabian physicians and astronomers of the eleventh century; Rhasis was a Spanish Arab, of the tenth century; and Averroes was a Moorish scholar, who flourished in Morocco in the twelfth century; Johannes Damascenus was also an Arabian physician, but of a much earlier date; Constantius Afer, a native of Carthage, and afterwards a monk of Monte Cassino, was one of the founders of the school of Salerno,-he lived at the end of the eleventh century; Bernardus Gordonius, professor of medicine at Montpellier, appears to have been Chaucer's contemporary; John Gatisden was a distinguished physician of Oxford, in the earlier half of the fourteenth century; Gilbertyn is supposed by Warton to be the cele brated Gilbertus Anglicus. The other names mentioned here are too well known to need further observation. The names of Hippocrates and Galen were, in the middle ages, always (or nearly always) spelt Xpocras and Galienus. |