24. #ow to neodeð#: comp. ‘nimen . . . þet hire to neodeð,’ AR 414/24. #ow# is _dat._ depending directly on the verb, the usual construction of the person in EME. for neoden and neod, comp. 123/210; #to# is adverbial and a superfluity, quite in the manner of the writer, comp. ‘þurh hwat muhte sonre ful luue of aquiken,’ AR 58/10; ‘þet ich spec er of þeruppe,’ id. 372/23; 130/80 note. Contrast, ‘Nefde he nane neode to us ac we hefden muchele neode to him,’ OEH i. 123/35, where to = of. #to bedde#: comp. ‘to ruggen and to bedde[;] iscrud mid gode webbe,’ L 19946, 7; ‘Nowe is the tyme of the yere when provysion was wont to be made . . . of ther wynter vesturys [to] theyr bodyes and to ther beddis,’ Wright, Suppression of Monasteries, 68/4: ‘a lit ⁊ a dos,’ F. 26. #linnene#: its use in any form was a great concession. It was noted that Abbot Roger Norreys of Evesham, in his contempt for the Rule, ‘camisiis et lintheaminibus . . . palam utebatur,’ Chron. Abb. de Evesham, 104. #hearde#, hard; _pl._ of heard, l. 44: #herde# N 28 is the same word, but Morris glosses it, hards, hurds, tow, and heorden, hards of flax, referring both to #heordan#, without accounting for the difference in form. The meaning, of hards and of coarse hards, is not satisfactory. F has ‘sil ne seit de stupeȝ ⁊ de grosses estoupes’; the two nouns appear to be an Anglo-French and a French form from the same Latin word, stupa. Possibly the former means tow of flax and the latter tow of hemp; anyhow the cloth was called stupacium. Comp. generally, ‘Porro talia ei vestimenta sufficiant quae frigus repellant. Grossioribus peliciis utatur, & pellibus propter hyemem, propter aestatem autem unam habeat tunicam: utroque vero tempore duas de stupacio camisias vel staminas,’ Ailred, 644 e. 27. #Stamin#: OF. estamine, an under-garment loosely woven of coarse wool, nearly as uncomfortable as a hair shirt, ‘camiseam de grossiori panno [habeant], si voluerint’ of the Gilbertine Rule, p. *lxxix. ‘Estamiȝ,’ F. 28. #hetter#, garment: ‘vn de voȝ vestures,’ F. OE. _pl._ #hæteru#, often in ME. as singular. ‘Vestiti quoque dormiant et cincti, vt semper sint parati,’ Grimlaici Regula Solitariorum, in Holstenii Codex, i. 291. Lay folk did not in those days wear night clothes. #leoðeliche#, loosely: the ME. adverb corresponding to the OE. adjective #liþig#, flexible; comp. OWScand. liðugr, free: liðeliche, 72/194 is OE. #līþe#, soft. The writer here and elsewhere shows himself anxious to mitigate the austerities of his pupils. F has nothing corresponding to swa--under. 30. #cunne# is historically genitive plural: see 132/9 note and 81/80 note. #schriftes#, confessor’s: the ‘meistre’ of 60/2: comp. 80/62; ‘bi ure shriftes rede,’ OEH ii. 55/29; ‘mid ðe rade of þine scrifte,’ VV 127/2. In F ‘sanȝ congie de son confessour’ corresponds to ‘wiðute schriftes leaue,’ 62/33.