[Sidenotes (by line number): [43] Late to rise, I was; dirty at dinner, [49] dea to the snubbings of my friends, [51] reckless in God’s service, [54] chief shammer of illness when I was well, [57] always unsteady, [60] ill-conducted, [62] sparing none for my pleasure.] [Collations: A: strecched. (These collations are from Harl. 218, fol. 65, back.) B: toke. C: skoured. D: nedir hegge. E: sey. F: mowen. G: koude. H: alle vse. I: cheristones to. K: sacryng. L: hondes. M: atte. N: Snybbyng. O: tamende. P: rekkes. Q: froward. R: and felt. S: made.] At these monastic schools, I suppose, were educated mainly the boys whom the monks hoped would become monks, cleric or secular; mostly the poor, the Plowman’s brother who was to be the Parson, not often the ploughman himself. Once, though, made a scholar and monk there, and sent by the Monastery to the University, the workman’s, if not the ploughman’s, son, might rule nobles and sit by kings, nay, beard them to their face. Thomas a Becket, himself the son of independent[[63a]] parents, was sent to be brought up in the “religious house of the Canons of Merton.” In 1392 the writer of Piers Plowman’s Crede sketches the then state of things thus: Now mot ich soutere hys sone · seten to schole, And ich a beggeres brol · on the book lerne, And worth to a writere · and with a lorde dwelle, Other falsly to a frere · the fend for to serven; 4 So of that beggares brol · a [bychop[64]] shal worthen, Among the peres of the lond · prese to sytten, And lordes sones[65] lowly · to tho losels alowte, Knyghtes crouketh hem to · and cruccheth ful lowe; 8 And his syre a soutere · y-suled in grees, His teeth with toylyng of lether · tatered as a sawe. [Sidenotes (by line number): [1] Now every cobbler’s son and beggar’s brat turns writer, then Bishop, [7] and lords’ sons crouch to him, [9] a cobbler’s son.] Here I might stop the quotation, but I go on, for justice has never yet been done[66] to this noble _Crede_ and William’s _Vision_ as pictures of the life of their times,--chiefly from the profound ignorance of us English of our own language; partly from the grace, the freshness, and the brilliance of Chaucer’s easier and inimitable verse:--