1826. The body occupied the place of honour. 'The bier, if the deceased had been a _clerk_, went into the chancel; if a layman, and not of high degree, the bearers set it down in the nave, hard by the church-door'; Rock, Ch. of our Fathers, ii. 472. He cites the Sarum Manual, fol. c. 1827. _the abbot_; pronounced _thabbòt_. _covent_, convent; here used for the monks who composed the body over which the abbot presided. So in Shakespeare, Hen. VIII, iv. 2. 18--'where the reverend abbot, With all his _covent_, honourably received him.' The form _covent_ is Old French, still preserved in _Covent Garden_. 1835. _halse_; two MSS. consulted by Tyrwhitt read _conjure_, a mere gloss, caught from the line above. Other examples of _halse_ in the sense of _conjure_ occur. 'Ich _halsi_ þe o godes nome' = I conjure thee in God's name; St. Marherete, ed. Cockayne, p. 17. Again, in Joseph of Arimathie, ed. Skeat, l. 400-- 'Vppon þe hei[gh]e trinite · I _halse_ þe to telle'-- which closely resembles the present passage. 1838. _to my seminge_, i. e. as it appears to me. 1840. 'And, in the ordinary course of nature.' 1843. _Wil_, wills, desires. So in Matt. ix. 13, I _will_ have mercy = I require mercy; Gk. [Greek: eleon thelô]; Vulgate, misericordiam uolo. Cf. B. 45. 1848. In the Ellesmere MS. (which has the metrical pauses marked) the pause in this line is marked after _lyf_. The word _sholde_ is dissyllabic here, having more than the usual emphasis; it has the force of _ought to_. Cf. E. 1146. 1852. In the Cursor Mundi, 1373-6, Seth is told to place three pippins under the root of Adam's tongue. 1857. _now_ is used in the sense of _take notice that_, without any [181] reference to _time_. There is no necessity to alter the reading to _than_, as proposed by Tyrwhitt. See Mätzner, Engl. Gram. ii. 2. 346, who refers to Luke ii. 41, John i. 44, and quotes an apt passage from Maundeville's Travels, p. 63--'_Now_ aftre that men han visited the holy places, _thanne_ will they turnen toward Jerusalem.' In A. S. the word used in similar cases is _s[=o]þl[=i]ce_ = soothly, verily.