Chese, now,' quod sche, 'oon of these thinges

tweye,

To have me foul and old til that I deye,
And be to yow a trewe humble wyf,
And never yow displease in al my lyf;
Or elles ye wol have me yong and tair,
And take your aventure of the repair
That schal be to your hous bycause of me,
Or in som other place it may wel be.
Now chese yourselven whethir that yow
This knight avysith him, and sore sikith,
But atte last he sayd in this manere:

liketh.'

'My lady and my love, and wyf so deere,
I putte me in your wyse governaunce,
Chesith yourself which may be most pleasaunce
And most honour to yow and me also,

I do no fors the whether of the tuo,
For as yow likith, it suffisith me.'

'Than have I gete of yow the maystry,' quod sche,
'Sith I may govern and chese as me list?
'Ye certis, wyf,' quod he, I hold it best.'

'Kys me,' quod sche, we ben no lenger wrothe, For, by my trouthe, I wol be to yow bothe,

This is to say, ye, bothe fair and good.

I

pray to God that I mot sterve wood

But I be to yow al so good and trewe

As ever was wyf, siththen the world was newe;
And but I be to morow as fair to seen
Ay eny lady, emperesse, or queen,
That is bitwixe thest and eek the west,
Doth by my lyf right even as yow lest,
Cast up the cortyns, and look what this is.'

And whan the knyght saugh verrayly al this,

That is, Take your chance for the number of men who may resort to your house to pay their addresses to me.

* The second Cambridge MS. reads, instead of this line:

And so they slept tille the morwe gray;
And than she saide, when it was day,
Caste up the curteyn, loke howe it is.''

That sche so fair was, and so yong therto,
For joye he hent hir in his armes tuo ;
His berte bathid in a bath of blisse,
A thousand tyme on rowe he gan hir kisse.
And sche obeyed him in every thing
That mighte doon him pleisauns or likyng.
And thus thay lyve unto her lyves end
In parfyt joye; and Jhesu Crist us sende
Housbondes meke, yonge, and freissche on bedde,
And grace to overbyde hem that we wedde.
And eek I pray to Jhesus schort her lyves,
That wil nought be governed after her wyves

And old and angry nygardes of despense, sterois fellow
God send hem sone verray pestilence!

THIS

THE PROLOGE OF THE FRERE.

HIS worthy lymytour, this noble Frere,
He made alway a maner lourynge cheere
Upon the Sompnour, but for honeste
No vileyn's worde yit to him spak he.
But atte last he sayd unto the wyf,
'Dame,' quod he, God give yow good ly!
Ye han her touchid, al so mot I the,
In scole matier gret difficulte.

Ye han sayd mochel thing right wel, I say;
But dame, right as we ryden by the way,
Us needeth nought but for to speke of game,
And lete auctorites,' in Goddes name,
To preching and to scoles of clergie.
But if it like to this companye,
I wil yow of a sompnour telle a game;
Parde, ye my wel knowe by the name,

1 Auctoritas m It is applied no! the word. Thutranslation of the dit ceste auctorite

the text, and expositio auctoritatis, the comment. to Scripture, but to any authority, as we still use in de Vignay, in his introduction to the French yenda Aurea, says, Monseigneur Saint Hierosme me

That of a sompnour may no good be sayd;
I pray that noon of yow be evel apayd;
A sompnour is a renner up and doun
With maundementz for fornicacioun,"
And is y-bete at every tounes eende.'

Our oste spak, 'A ! sir, ye schold been heende,
And curteys, as a man of your estaat,
In company we wol have no debaat;

Telleth your tale, and let the Sompnour be.'
'Nay,' quoth the Sompnour, 'let him say to me
What so him list; whan it cometh to my lot,
By God! I schal him quyten every grot.
I schal him telle which a gret honour
Is to ben a fals flateryng lymytour."
And his offis I schal him telle I wis.'

Oure host answerd, 'Pees, no more of this."
And after this he sayd unto the Frere,
'Telleth forth your tale, my leve' maister deere.'

THE FRERES TALE.

[THIS tale was probably translated, as Mr. Wright conjectures, from some old fabliau, which also furnished the groundwork of the short tale entitled De Advocato et Diabolo, published by the Percy Society in a collection of Latin Stories, edited by Mr. Wright. Another version of the story, still closer to Chaucer's tale, has since been discovered in the British Museum (MS.

1 Citations, or summonses, addressed to those accused of breaches of the canons, to appear and answer in the Archdeacon's court. The officer charged with the duty of serving these was no doubt often visited with the same summary punishment which is said to have been often indicted on sheriffs' officers in Ireland in the last century. The sompnour, as his name implies, was the summoner, or server of summonses, answering to our modern apparitor.

It is strange that St. Francis and St. Dominic should not have foreseen that their rule, requiring the friars to obtain their livelihood by begging from house to house, would necessarily impair their indes pendence of mind, and habituate them to the arts of flattery.

Harl. MS., and said the sompnour this.

• Harl MS., leve is omitted.

Cotton. Cleopatra, D. viii., fol. 110), and published-by Mr.
Wright in the Archæologia, vol. xxxii.]

WHILOM there was dwellyng in my countre
An erchedeken, a man of gret degre,

That boldely did execucioun,

In punyschyng of fornicacioun,
Of wicchecraft, and eel: of bauderye,
Of diffamacioun, and avoutrie,

Of chirche-reves, and of testamentes,
Of contractes, and of lak of sacraments,1
And eek of many another maner cryme,
Which needith not to reherse at this tyme;

1 Lak of sacraments' means the neglect of the Church's precept to communicate at Easter, to which sacramental confession was, in the medieval Church, practically, though not theoretically, a necessary preliminary.

The system of ecclesiastical discipline upon which this tale is founded requires some further explanation.

In the Church of the first three centuries ecclesiastical censures had the effect of depriving the offender of spiritual privileges only.--See BINGHAM'S Antiquities, &c., 16, 2, 3. But when the empire became Christian, under Constantine and his successors, a new principle was gradually introduced. It was thought that the State was bound to add its temporal, to the Church's spiritual, sanctions; and the contumacious or excommunicated person was coerced by civil disabilities. After the destruction of the Roman Empire, the same legal principle was adopted by the several states of Christendom founded upon its ruins, and therefore forms an important part of mediæval jurisprudence. See a very apposite illustration of this in the first part of DE JOINVILLE'S Memoirs of Louis IX., near the end.

At the Reformation, the several reformed communities adopted the same principle. The Calvinists, or Presbyterians, at Geneva, in Scot land, and in England during their short term of power, were especially zealous in enforcing it.-See Preface to HOOKER'S Becles. Pol.

The canons of the Church of England, passed in 1604, which still in many respects regulate the practice of the English Ecclesiastical Courts, bear witness to the system as enforced in the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts.-See particularly Canons 2, 65, and 112, in which the Questman seems to have performed many of the duties of Chaucer's compnour. These have now become obsolete, partly from being inconsistent with recent statutes, and partly by the tacit consent of all parties. Most of the communities of non-conformists, however, maintain a principle of discipline similar to that of the Ante-Nicene Church, their reading out of meeting' being exactly equivalent to the excommunication of the early ages of Clifistianity.

Of usur, and of symony also;

But certes lecchours did he grettest woo;
Thay schulde synge, if that they were hent;
And smale tythers thay were fouly schent,
If eny persoun wold upon hem pleyne,
Ther might astert him no pecunial peyne.
For smale tythes and for smal offrynge,"
He made the poeple pitously to synge.
For er the bisschop caught hem in his hook,"
They weren in the archedeknes book:
And hadde thurgh his jurediccioun
Power to have of hem correccioun.
He had a sompnour redy to his hond,
A slyer boy was noon in Engelond;
Ful prively he had his espiaile,
That taughte him wher he might avayle.
He couthe spare of lecchours oon or tuo,
To techen him to four and twenty mo.
For though this sompnour wood were as an hare,
To telle his harlotry I wol not spare;
For we ben out of here correccioun,
They have of us no jurediccioun,*

The neglect to pay tithes and Easter offerings came under the archdeacon's jurisdiction, as the bishop's diocesan officer. The friar does not scruple to make an invidious use of this subject at the expense of the parochial clergy, because, being obliged by his rule to gain his liveli hood by begging, he had no interest in tithes.

2 An allusion to the bishop's pastoral staff, which was in the shape of a sheep-hook. Its form and symbolical meaning are thus described in the Vision of Piers Plowman :—

• Dobest is above bothe,

And berith a bischopis 'crois,'
And is hokid on that on end

To halie men fro helle,
And a pike is in the poynt
To put adon the wyked.'

Offenders were, in the first instance, summoned before the archdeacon, and afterwards, if found incorrigible, transferred to the bishop, who alone had the power of inflicting the greater excommunication.

The religious orders, but particularly the mendicants or friars, were, by special dispensation of the pope, exempt from the bishop's jurisdiction, and placed under that of their general or superior only, with, of course, an appeal to the supreme pontiff. This was a fertile subject