_a_ 264. Jusserand gives a brief account of the old-time physicians in _English Wayfaring Life_, pp. 177 ff. The best were somewhat haphazard in their methods, and the mountebanks brought discredit on the profession. Here are a few fourteenth-century prescriptions: _For hym that haves the squynansy ['quinsy']_:— Tak a fatte katte, and fla hit wele and clene, and draw oute the guttes; and tak the grees of an urcheon ['hedgehog'], and the fatte of a bare, and resynes, and feinygreke ['fenugreek'], and sauge ['sage'], and gumme of wodebynde, and virgyn wax: al this mye ['grate'] smal, and farse ['stuff'] the catte within als thu farses a gos: rost hit hale, and geder the grees, and enoynt hym tharwith. (_Reliquiae Antiquae_, ed. Wright and Halliwell (1841), vol. i, p. 51.) _Ȝyf a woud hund hat ybite a man_:— Take tou<n>karsyn ['towncress'], and pulyole ['penny-royal'], and seþ hit in water, and ȝef hym to drynke, and hit schal caste out þe venym: and ȝif þou miste ['might'] haue of þe hundys here, ley hit þerto, and hit schal hele hit. (_Medical Works of the Fourteenth Century_, ed. G. Henslow, London 1899, p. 19.) _A goud oynement for þe goute_:— Take þe grece of a bor, and þe grece of a ratoun, and cattys grece, and voxis grece, and hors grece, and þe grece of a brok ['badger']; and take feþeruoye ['feverfew'] and eysyl ['vinegar'], and stampe h_e_m togedre; and take a litel lynnesed, and stampe hit wel, and do hit þerto; and meng al togedre, and het hit in a scherd, and þerwith anoynte þe goute by the fuyre. Do so ofte and hit schal be hol. (Ibid., p. 20.) _a_ 284. _Lammasse tyme_: August 1, when the new corn (l. 294) would be in. On this day a loaf was offered as firstfruits: whence the name, OE. _hlāf-mæsse_. _a_ 307 ff. Owing to repeated famines, the wages of manual labour rose throughout the first half of the fourteenth century. A crisis was reached when the Black Death (1349) so reduced the number of workers that the survivors were able to demand wages on a scale which seemed unconscionable to their employers. By the Statute of Labourers (1350 and 1351) an attempt was made to force wages and prices back to the level of 1346. For a day's haymaking 1_d._ was to be the maximum wage; for reaping 2_d._ or 3_d._ Throughout the second half of the fourteenth century vain attempts were made to enforce these maxima, and the penalties did much to fan the unrest that broke out in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. _a_ 309-10. From Bk. i of the _Disticha_ of Dionysius Cato, a collection of proverbs famous throughout the Middle Ages. _a_ 321. Saturn was a malevolent planet, as we see from his speech in Chaucer's _Knight's Tale_, 1595 ff. _a_ 324. _Deth_: the Plague.