In all the parish, wif ne was there non
That to the offring bifore hire shulde gon;
And if ther did, certain so wroth was she,
That she was out of alle charite.

m

Hire coverchiefs weren ful fine of ground,
I dorste swere they weyeden a pound,
That on the sonday were upon hire hede:
Her hosen weren of fine scarlet rede,

Full streite iteyed, and shoon ful moist and newe:
Bold was hire face, and fayre and rede of hew.
She was a worthy woman all hire live:

Housbondes at the chirche dore" had she had five."

The FRANKELEIN is a country gentleman, whose estate consisted in free land, and was not subject to feudal services or payments. He is ambitious of shewing his riches by the plenty of his table: but his hospitality, a virtue much more practicable among our ancestors than at present, often degenerates into luxurious excess. His impatience if his sauces were not sufficiently poignant, and every article of his dinner in due form and readiness, is touched with the hand of Pope or Boileau. He had been a president at the sessions, knight of the shire, a sheriff, and a coroner P.

An housholder, and that a grete, was he:
Seint Julian he was in his contree.

m head-dress.

"At the southern entrance of Norwich cathedral, a representation of the ESPOUSALS, or sacrament of marriage, is carved in stone; for here the hands of the couple were joined by the priest, and great part of the service performed. Here also the bride was endowed with what was called Dos ad ostium ecclesiæ. This ceremony is exhibited in a curious old picture engraved by Mr. Walpole, where king Henry the Seventh is married to his queen, standing at the façade or western portal of a magnificent Gothic church. Anecd. Paint. i. 31. Compare

VOL. II.

T

Marten. Rit. Eccl. Anecdot. ii. p. 630. And Hearne's Antiquit. Glastonb. Append. p. 310.

v. 449.

P An office antiently executed by gentlemen of the greatest respect and property.

Simon the leper, at whose house our Saviour lodged in Bethany, is called, in the Legends, Julian the good herborow, and bishop of Bethpage. In the TALE OF BERYN, St. Julian is invoked to revenge a traveller who had been traitorously used in his lodgings. See Urr. Ch. p. 599. v. 625.

His brede, his ale, was alway after on;
A better envyned' man was no wher non.
Withouten bake mete never was his hous
Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous,
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,
Of alle deintees that men coud of thinke.
After the sondry sesons of the yere,
So changed he his mete', and his soupere.
Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in mewe,
And many a breme, and many a luce", in stewe.
Wo was his coke, but if his sauce were
Poinant and sharpe, and ready all his gere!
His table dormant in his halle alway,

X

Stode redy covered, all the longè day. *

The character of the Doctor of PHISICKE preserves to us the state of medical knowledge, and the course of medical erudition then in fashion. He treats his patients according to rules of astronomy: a science which the Arabians engrafted on medicine.

For he was grounded in astronomie :
He kept his patient a ful gret dele
In houres by his magike naturel. ▾

Petrarch leaves a legacy to his physician John de Dondi, of Padua, who was likewise a great astronomer, in the year 13702. It was a long time before the medical profession was purged from these superstitions. Hugo de Evesham, born in Worcestershire, one of the most famous physicians in Europe about the year 1280, educated in both the universities of England, and at others in France and Italy, was eminently skilled in mathematics and astronomy. Pierre d'Apono, a celebrated professor of medicine and astronomy at Padua, wrote commentaries on the problems of Aristotle, in the year 1310. Roger

In the

Bacon says, "astronomiæ pars melior medicina"." statutes of New-College at Oxford, given in the year 1387, medicine and astronomy are mentioned as one and the same science. Charles the Fifth king of France, who was governed entirely by astrologers, and who commanded all the Latin treatises which could be found relating to the stars, to be translated into French, established a college in the university of Paris for the study of medicine and astrology. There is a scarce and very curious book, entitled, "Nova medicinæ methodus curandi morbos ex mathematica scientia deprompta, nunc denuo revisa, &c. Joanne Hasfurto Virdungo, medico et astrologo doctissimo, auctore, Haganoæ excus. 15184." Hence magic made a part of medicine. In the MARCHAUNTS second tale, or HISTORY OF BERYN, falsely ascribed to Chaucer, a chirurgical operation of changing eyes is partly performed by the assistance of the occult sciences.

-The whole science of all surgery,

Was unyd, or the chaunge was made of both eye,
With many sotill enchantours, and eke nygrymauncers,
That sent wer for the nonis, maistris, and scoleris.

Leland mentions one William Glatisaunt, an astrologer and physician, a fellow of Merton college in Oxford, who wrote a medical tract, which, says he, "nescio quid MAGIE spirabat." I could add many other proofs.

The books which our physician studied are then enumerated.

Well knew he the old Esculapius,

And Dioscorides, and eke Rufus,
Old Hippocras, Hali, and Gallien,
Serapion, Rasis, and Avicen,

Averrois, Damascene, and Constantin,

Bernard, and Gattisden, and Gilbertin.

Bacon, Op. Maj. edit. Jebb, p. 158. See also p. 240. 247.

Montfaucon, Bibl. Manuscript. tom. ii. p. 791. b. d In quarto.

e

v. 2989. Urr. Ch.

f Lel. apud Tann. Bibl. p. 262. And Lel. Script. Brit. p. 400.

8 See Ames's Hist. Print. p. 147.

Rufus, a physician of Ephesus, wrote in Greek, about the time of Trajan. Some fragments of his works still remain". Haly was a famous Arabic astronomer, and a commentator on Galen, in the eleventh century, which produced so many famous Arabian physicians. John Serapion, of the same age and country, wrote on the practice of physic. Avicen, the most eminent physician of the Arabian school, flourished in the same century'. Rhasis, an Asiatic physician, practised at Cordoua in Spain, where he died in the tenth century". Averroes, as the Asiatic schools decayed by the indolence of the Caliphs, was one of those philosophers who adorned the Moorish schools erected in Africa and Spain. He was a professor in the university of Morocco. He wrote a commentary on all Aristotle's works, and died about the year 1160. He was styled the most Peripatetic of all the Arabian writers. He was born at Cordoua of an antient Arabic family". John Damascene, secretary to one of the Caliphs, wrote in various sciences, before the Arabians had entered Europe, and had seen the Grecian philosophers. Constantinus Afer, a monk of Cassino in Italy, was one of the Saracen physicians who brought medicine into Europe, and formed the Salernitan school, chiefly by translating various Arabian and Grecian medical books into Latin P. He was born at Carthage: and learned grammar,

h Conring. Script. Com. Sæc. i. cap. 4. p. 66. 67. The Arabians have translations of him. Herbel. Bibl. Orient. p. 972. b. 977. b.

i Id. ibid. Sæc. xi. cap. 5. p. 114. Haly, called Abbas, was likewise an eminent physician of this period. He was called "Simia Galeni" Id. ibid. * Id. ibid. p. 113, 114.

Id. ibid. See Pard. T. v. 2407. Urr.

p. 136.

m Conring. ut supr. Sæc. x. cap. 4. p. 110. He wrote a large and famous work, called Continens. Rhasis and Almasor, (f. Albumasar, a great Arabian astrologer,) occur in the library of Peterborough Abby, Matric. Libr. Monast. Burgi S. Petri. Gunton, Peterb. p. 187. See Hearne, Ben. Abb. Præf, lix.

p. 118.

° Voss. Hist. Gr. L. ii. c. 24.

P Petr. Diacon. de Vir. illustr. Monast. Cassin. cap. xxiii. See the DISSERTATIONS. He is again mentioned by our author in the MARCHAUNT'S TALE, V. 1326. p. 71. Urr.

And lectuaries had he there full fine, Soche as the cursid monk Dan Constantine

Hath written in his boke de Coitu.

The title of this book is "DE COITU, quibus prosit aut obsit, quibus medicaminibus et alimentis acuatur impediaturve." Inter Op. Basil. 1536. fol.

logic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and natural philosophy, of the Chaldees, Arabians, Persians, Saracens, Egyptians, and Indians, in the schools of Bagdat. Being thus completely accomplished in these sciences, after thirty-nine years study, he returned into Africa, where an attempt was formed against his life. Constantine, having fortunately discovered this design, privately took ship and came to Salerno in Italy, where he lurked some time in disguise. But he was recognised by the Caliph's brother then at Salerno, who recommended him as a scholar universally skilled in the learning of all nations, to the notice of Robert duke of Normandy. Robert entertained him with the highest marks of respect: and Constantine, by the advice of his patron, retired to the monastery of Cassino, where being kindly received by the abbot Desiderius, he translated in that learned society the books above mentioned, most of which he first imported into Europe. These versions are said to be still extant. He flourished about the year 1086o. Bernard, or Bernardus Gordonius, appears to have been Chaucer's cotemporary. He was a professor of medicine at Montpelier, and wrote many treatises in that faculty'. John Gatisden was a fellow of Merton college, where Chaucer was educated, about the year 13203. Pits says, that he was

See Leo Ostiensis, or P. Diac. Auctar. ad Leon. Chron. Mon. Cassin. lib. iii. c. 35. p. 445. Scriptor. Italic. tom. iv. Murator. In his book DE INCANTATIONIBUS, one of his inquiries is, An invenerim in libris GRÆCORUM hoc qualiter in INDORUM libris est invenire, &c. Op. tom. i. ut supr.

Petr. Lambec. Prodrom. Sæc. xiv. p. 274. edit. ut supr.

It has been before observed, that at the introduction of philosophy into Europe by the Saracens, the clergy only studied and practised the inedical art. This fashion prevailed a long while af terwards. The Prior and Convent of S. Swithin's at Winchester granted to Thomas of Shaftesbury, clerk, a corrody, consisting of two dishes daily from the Prior's kitchen, bread, drink, robes,

and a competent chamber in the monastery, for the term of his life. In consideration of all which concessions, the said Thomas paid them fifty marcs: and moreover is obliged, "deservire nobis in Arte medicine. Dat. in dom. Capitul. Feb. 15. A. D. 1319." Registr. Priorat. S. Swithin. Winton. MS, sup. citat. The most learned and accur.ue Fabricius has a separate article on THEOLOGI MEDICI. Bibi, Gr. xii. 739. scq. See also Gianon. Istor. Neapol. I. x. ch. xi. § 491. In the romance of SiR GUY, a monk heals the knight's wounds. Signat. G. iiii.

There was a monke beheld him well That could of leach crafte some dell. In G. of Monmouth, who wrote in 1128, Eopa intending to poison Ambro.