_Scot._ 'The name given to the horse of the reeve (who lived at Bawdeswell, in Norfolk) is a curious instance of Chaucer's accuracy; for to this day there is scarcely a farm in Norfolk or Suffolk, in which one of the horses is not called Scot'; Bell's Chaucer. Cf. G. 1543. 617. _pers._ Some MSS. read _blew_. See note on l. 439. 621. _Tukked aboute_, with his long coat tucked up round him by help of a girdle. In the pictures in the Ellesmere MS., both the reeve and the friar have girdles, and rather long coats; cf. D. 1737. 'He (i. e. a friar) wore a graie cote _well tucked under his corded girdle_, with a paire of trime white hose'; W. Bullein, A Dialogue against the Feuer (E. E. T. S.), p. 68. See _Tuck_ in Skeat, Etym. Dict. 622. _hind-r-este_, hindermost; a curious form, combining both the comparative and superlative suffixes. Cf. _ov-er-est_, l. 290. THE SOMNOUR. 623. _Somnour_, summoner; an officer employed to summon delinquents to appear in ecclesiastical courts; now called an apparitor. 'The ecclesiastical courts ... determined all causes matrimonial and testamentary.... They had besides to enforce the payment of tithes [52] and church dues, and were charged with disciplinary power for punishment of adultery, fornication, perjury, and other vices which did not come under the common law. The reputation of the _summoner_ is enough to show how abuses pervaded the action of these courts. Prof. Stubbs has summed up the case concerning them in his Constitutional History, iii. 373.'--Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, note at p. 514. For further information as to the summoner's character, see the Frere's Tale, D. 1299-1374. 624. _cherubinnes face._ H. Stephens, Apologie for Herodotus, i. c. 30, quotes the same thought from a French epigram--'Nos grands docteurs _au cherubin visage_.'--T. Observe that _cherubin_ (put for _cherubim_) is a plural form. 'As the pl. was popularly much better known than the singular (e. g. in the Te Deum), the Romanic forms were all fashioned on _cherubin_, viz. Ital. _cherubino_, Span. _querubin_, Port. _querubin_, _cherubin_, F. _cherubin_'; New English Dictionary. Cherubs were generally painted red, a fact which became proverbial, as here. Cotgrave has: '_Rouge comme un cherubin_, red-faced, cherubin-faced, having a fierie facies like a Cherubin.' Mrs. Jameson, in her Sacred and Legendary Art, has unluckily made the cherubim _blue_, and the seraphim _red_; the contrary was the accepted rule.