163. _Another Nonne._ It was not common for Prioresses to have female chaplains; but Littré gives _chapelaine_, fem., as an old title of dignity in a nunnery. Moreover, it is an office still held in most Benedictine convents, as is fully explained in a letter written by a modern Nun-Chaplain, and printed in Anglia, iv. 238. See also N. and Q. 7 S. vi. 485; The Academy, Aug. 23, 1890, p. 152. 164. The mention of _three priests_ presents some difficulty. To make up the twenty-nine mentioned in l. 24, we only want _one_ priest, and it is afterwards assumed that there was but _one_ priest, viz. the Nonnes Preest, who tells the tale of the Cock and Fox. Chaucer also, in all other cases, supposes that there was but _one_ representative of each class. The most likely solution is that Chaucer wrote a character of the Second Nun, beginning-- 'Another Nonne with hir hadde she That was hir chapeleyne'-- and that, for some reason, he afterwards suppressed the description. The line left imperfect, as above, may have been filled up, to stop a gap, either by himself (temporarily), or indeed by some one else. If we are to keep the text (which stands alike in all MSS.), we must take '_wel_ nyne and twenty' to mean '_at least_ nine and twenty.' The letter from the Nun-Chaplain mentioned in the last note shews that an Abbess might have as many as _five_ priests, as well as a chaplain. See Essays on Chaucer (Ch. Soc.), p. 183. The difficulty is, merely, how to reconcile this line with l. 24. THE MONK. 165. _a fair_, i. e. a fair one. Cf. 'a merye' in l. 208; and l. 339. _for the maistrye_ is equivalent to the French phrase _pour la maistrie_, which in old medical books is 'applied to such medicines as we usually call sovereign, excellent above all others'; Tyrwhitt. We may explain it by 'as regards superiority,' or, 'to shew his excellence.' Cf. 'An stede he gan aprikie · wel _vor the maistrie_'; Rob. of Glouc. l. 11554 (or ed. Hearne, p. 553). In the Romance of Sir Launfal, ed. Ritson, l. 957, is a description of a saddle, adorned with 'twey stones of Ynde Gay _for the maystrye_'; i. e. preëminently gay. Several characteristics of various orders of monks are satirically noted in Wright's Political Songs, pp. 137-148. 166. _out-rydere_, outrider; formerly the name of an officer of a monastery or abbey, whose duty was to look after the manors belonging to it; or, as Chaucer himself explains it, in B. 1255-- 'an officere out for to ryde To seen hir graunges and hir bernes wyde. [20] In the Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, 1492-1532, ed. Jessop (Camden Soc.), pp. 214, 279, the word occurs twice, as the name of an officer of the Abbey of St. Benet's, Hulme; e.g. 'Dompnus Willelmus Hornyng, _oute-rider_, dicit quod multa edificia et orrea maneriorum sunt prostrata et collapsa praesertim violentia venti hoc anno.'