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• Introduction to the Notes.
• Errata In Vol IV.
• Vol. V. Addenda, Etc.
• Notes to the Canterbury Tales.
• The General Prologue
• The Knightes Tale.
• The Miller’s Prologue.
• The Milleres Tale.
• The Reve’s Prologue.
• The Reves Tale.
• The Cook’s Prologue.
• The Cokes Tale.
• Notes to Group B.
• Introduction to the Man of Lawes Tale.
• Prologue to the Man of Lawes Tale.
• The Tale of the Man of Lawe.
• The Shipman’s Prologue.
• The Shipmannes Tale.
• The Prioress’s Prologue.
• The Prioresses Tale.
• Prologue to Sir Thopas.
• The Tale of Sir Thopas.
• Prologue to Melibeus.
• The Tale of Melibeus.
• The Monk’s Prologue.
• The Monkes Tale.
• The Nonne Prestes Prologue.
• The Nonne Preestes Tale.
• Epilogue to the Nonne Preestes Tale.
• Notes to Group C.
• The Phisiciens Tale.
• Words of the Host.
• The Pardoneres Prologue.
• The Pardoneres Tale.
• Notes to Group D.
• The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.
• The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe.
• The Friar’s Prologue.
• The Freres Tale.
• The Sompnour’s Prologue.
• The Somnours Tale.
• Notes to Group E.
• The Clerkes Prologue.
• The Clerkes Tale.
• The Marchauntes Prologue.
• The Marchantes Tale.
• Notes to Group F.
• The Squieres Tale.
• The Words of the Franklin.
• The Prologue of the Franklin’s Tale.
• The Frankeleyns Tale.
• Notes to Group G.
• The Second Nonnes Tale.
• The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue.
• The Chanouns Yemannes Tale.
• Notes to Group H.
• The Manciple’s Prologue.
• The Maunciples Tale.
• Notes to Group I.
• The Parson’s Prologue.
• The Persones Tale.
• Notes to the Tale of Gamelyn.
• Addenda.

The Prioress’s Prologue.

1625.corpus dominus; of course for corpus domini, the Lord’s body. But it is unnecessary to correct the Host’s Latin.

1626. ‘Now long mayest thou sail along the coast!’

1627.marineer, Fr. marinier; we now use the ending -er; but modern words of French origin shew their lateness by the accent on the last syllable, as engineer.—M. The Fr. pionnier is pioner in Shakespeare, but is now pioneer.

1628. ‘God give this monk a thousand cart-loads of bad years!’ He alludes to the deceitful monk described in the Shipman’s Tale. A last is a very heavy load. In a Statute of 31 Edw. I. a weight is declared to be 14 stone; 2 weights of wool are to make a sack; and 12 sacks a last. This makes a last of wool to be 336 stone, or 42 cwt. But the dictionaries shew that the weight was very variable, according to the substance weighed. The word means simply a heavy burden, from A. S. hlæst, a burden, connected with hladan, to load; so that last and load are alike in sense. Laste, in the sense of heavy weight, occurs in Richard the Redeles, ed. Skeat, iv. 74. Quad is the Old English equivalent of the Dutch kwaad, bad, a word in very common use. In O. E., þe qued means the evil one, the devil; P. Pl. B. xiv. 189. Cf. note to A. 4357. The omission of the word of before quad may be illustrated by the expression ‘four score years,’ i.e. of years.

1630. ‘The monk put an ape in the man’s hood, and in his wife’s too.’ We should now say, he made him look like an ape. The contents of the hood would be, properly, the man’s head and face; but neighbours seemed to see peeping from it an ape rather than a man. It is a way of saying that he made a dupe of him. In the Milleres Tale (A. 3389), a girl is said to have made her lover an ape, i.e. a dupe; an expression which recurs in the Chanones Yemannes Tale, G. 1313. Spenser probably borrowed the expression from this very passage; it occurs in his Faerie Queene, iii. 9. 31:—

• ‘Thus was the ape,
• By their faire handling, put into Malbeccoes cape.’

1632. ‘Never entertain monks any more.’

1637. See the description of the Prioress in the Prologue, A. 118.