[120] This seems to have been, and, in many parts, is still, the name generally used by the vulgar for Erming Street. The course of the real Watling Street was from Dover to Chester. The Sayles appears to be some place in the neighbourhood of Barnsdale, but no mention of it has elsewhere occurred: though, it is believed, there is a field so called not far from Doncaster. [121] All his. PCC. [122] So R. [Rastall.] all thre. W. C. [de Worde and Copland.] [123] This. R. that. W. C. [124] Ere. R. [125] To pay. R. pay. W. C. [126] Robyn. R. Robyn Hoode. W. C. [127] Two yere. R. [128] Knowe. OCC. [129] It may amende. OCC. [130] Lancasesshyre. R. [131] Not. W. C. [132] By. W. C. [133] So R. knowe me. W. C. [134] The fragment of Rastall’s edition ends here. [135] Also. PCC. [136] Wyme. PCC. [137] _i.e._ by so many score to the hundred, or three hundred for one. It is certainly a very hyperbolical expression: but he measures the cloth in the same way. [138] Helpe. W. wrappe. C. [139] Leue. W. lende. C. [140] The prior, in an abbey, was the officer immediately under the abbot; in priories and conventual cathedrals he was the superior. [141] This was a “S. Richard, king and confessour, sonne to Lotharius king of Kent, who, for the love of Christ, taking upon him a long peregrination, went to Rome for devotion to that sea, and in his way homward, died at Luca, about the year of Christ, seaven hundred and fifty, where his body is kept untill this day with great veneration, in the oratory and chappell of S. Frigidian, and adorned with an epitaph both in verse and prose” (English Martyrologe, 1608). There were other saints of the same name, as Richard de la Wich, bishop of Chichester, canonised in 1262; and Richard, bishop of St. Andrews in Calabria. See Drayton’s Polyolbion, song 24. [142] Leue. W. Sende us. C. [143] Loke. W. C. [144] Grete. W. get. C. [145] Thou. PCC. [146] Uterysdale. O. CC. Wierysdale is the name of a forest in Lancashire: though it appears, in a subsequent part of this poem, that the knight’s castle was in Nottinghamshire. [147] Sute. C. [148] I up pyght. W. up ypyght. C. [149] Fere. W. in fere. C. [150] Shote. W. [151] He sleste (sliced?) W. [152] Thou wast. C. wast thou. Wh. [153] Ge. W. f. God. [154] _i.e._ while a man might have walked two miles and upward. [155] Hyed, C. [156] Whyle. W. [157] Syght. W. sightes. C. [158] Wo the worth. W. [159] Such. W. [160] He. Old copies. [161] You. W. Make you yonder preste. C. [162] Set. ‘shet’? [163] Yemen. C. [164] Lytell Johan, O. CC. [165] Them. O. CC. [166] To. W. [167] Nade. W. not in C. [168] Eyght pounde. W. [169] To. W. [170] Corser. W. courser. C. [171] Gayne. W. [172] But take not a grefe, sayd the knyght, That I have be so longe. O. CC. [173] I twyse. W.