Now the sections on the 'mene mote' have in their favour one strong piece of internal evidence; for the date 1397 is mentioned in them more than once as being the 'root' or epoch from which to reckon. In most cases, the mention of a date 1397 would lead us to attribute the writing in which it occurs to that year or to a _later_ year, but a date fixed on for a 'root' may very well be a _prospective_ one, so that these sections may have been written _before_ 1397; an idea which is supported by the line 'behold whether thy date be more or _lasse_ than the yere 1397'; sect. 44, l. 5. But I suspect the date to be an error for 1387, since that [see _Somer_ in Tyrwhitt's Glossary] was really the 'rote' used by Nicholas Lenne. In either case, I think we may connect these sections with the previous sections written in 1391[47]. Besides which, Chaucer so expressly intimates his acquaintance with the subjects of these sections in the Canterbury Tales[48], that we may the more readily admit them to be really his. There is still less difficulty about admitting the first three sections (41-43) on the 'umbrae,' because we find similar matter in the treatise of Messahala, from which, as will appear, he derived so much. And hence we may readily conclude that, in the second part, the first forty sections, found in the oldest MSS., are certainly genuine, whilst sections 41-43, as well as 44 and 45, have every claim to be considered genuine also. This need not, however, force us to accept the remaining sections, since they may easily have been added by another hand; a circumstance which is rendered the more probable by the fact that sections 41_a_-42_b_ merely repeat 41-43 in a more clumsy form, and by the consideration that, if genuine, they should have occupied their proper place immediately after sect. 43, instead of being separated from the former set. As to sect. 46, I pronounce no decided opinion; there is but little to be said either for or against it, and it is of little consequence.