429-34. Read _th'oldë_. 'The authors mentioned here wrote the chief medical text-books of the middle ages. Rufus was a Greek physician of Ephesus, of the age of Trajan; Haly, Serapion, and Avicen (Ebn Sina) were Arabian physicians and astronomers of the eleventh century; Rhasis was a Spanish Arab of the tenth century; and Averroes (Ebn Roschd) was a Moorish scholar who flourished in Morocco in the twelfth century. Johannes Damascenus was also an Arabian physician, but of a much earlier date (probably of the ninth century). Constanti[n]us Afer, a native of Carthage, and afterwards a monk of Monte Cassino, was one of the founders of the school of Salerno--he lived at the end of the eleventh century. Bernardus Gordonius, professor of medicine at Montpellier, appears to have been Chaucer's contemporary. John Gatisden was a distinguished physician of Oxford in the earlier half of the fourteenth century. Gilbertyn is supposed by Warton to be the celebrated Gilbertus Anglicus. The names of Hippocrates and Galen were, in the middle ages, always (or nearly always) spelt Ypocras and Galienus.'--Wright. Cf. C. 306. Æsculapius, god of medicine, was fabled to be the son of Apollo. Dioscorides was a Greek physician of the second century. See the long note in Warton, 1871, ii. 368; and the account in Saunders' [42] Chaucer (1889), p. 115. I may note here, that Haly wrote a commentary on Galen, and is mentioned in Skelton's Philip Sparowe, l. 505. There were three Serapions; the one here meant was probably John Serapion, in the eleventh century. Averroes wrote a commentary on the works of Aristotle, and died about 1198. Constantinus is the same as 'the cursed monk Dan Constantyn,' mentioned in the Marchaunt's Tale, E. 1810. John Gatisden was a fellow of Merton College, and 'was court-doctor under Edw. II. He wrote a treatise on medicine called _Rosa Anglica_'; J. Jusserand, Eng. Wayfaring Life, (1889), p. 180. Cf. Book of the Duchess, 572. Dante, Inf. iv. 143, mentions 'Ippocrate, Avicenna, e Gallieno, Averrois,' &c. 'Par Hipocras, ne Galien,... Rasis, Constantin, Avicenne'; Rom. de la Rose, 16161. See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 393. 439. 'In cloth of a blood-red colour and of a blueish-grey.' Cf. 'robes de _pers_,' Rom. de la Rose, 9116. In the Testament of Creseide, ed. 1550, st. 36, we find:-- 'Docter in phisike cledde in a scarlet gown, And furred wel as suche one oughte to be.' Cf. P. Plowman, B. vi. 271; Hoccleve, de Reg. Princ. p. 26. 440. _taffata_ (or _taffety_), a sort of thin silk; E. _taffeta_. _sendal_ (or _cendal_), a kind of rich thin silk used for lining, very highly esteemed. Thynne says--'a thynne stuffe lyke sarcenett.' Palsgrave however has '_cendell_, thynne lynnen, _sendal_.' See Piers Plowman, B. vi. 11; Marco Polo, ed. Yule (see the index). 441. _esy of dispence_, moderate in his expenditure.