9. #scamel#, from L. Lat. _scamellum_, dim. of _scamnum_, step, stool; it often means the little stool for the hands of cripples, but it is also synonymous with _scabellum_, which in the phrase _scabellum pedum_ occurs nine times in the Vulgate, with the meaning footstool. In two of these, Psalms xcviii. 5, cix. 1, the Surtees Psalter translates by schamel, Eadwine’s Canterbury Psalter by scæmol, the Paris Psalter by sceamul, the earliest Eng. Prose Psalter by shamel, the Lambeth Homilies (OEH i. 91/11) by fot-sceomele. Comp. ‘Vor þi alle þe halewen makeden of al þe worlde ase ane stol (scheomel, C; schamel, T) to hore uet, uorto arechen þe heouene,’ Ancren Riwle, 166/15, 6. Psalm cix. 1 ‘Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos, scabellum pedum tuorum,’ is quoted five times in the New Testament, and there may be a reference to it here. Zupitza suggests that l. 10 is based on ‘Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. In manibus portabunt te, ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum,’ Psalm xc. 11, 12; but _on þis erðe itredie_ is a weak representation of _offendas ad lapidem_. Now we are told by Reginald that the angels who bore the spirit of Burgwen halted ‘supra Altaris crepidinem,’ and the Harleian MS. has, more definitely, ‘eam super Altaris crepidinem statuerunt.’ The _scamel_ is simply the footpace of the altar on which she has been set. Reginald’s version points in this direction, ‘Sancta Maria super scamni sedile me deduxit’; as also Geoffrey’s paraphrase, ‘Ne pede calcarem terre contagia nudo (_a. l._ mundo), | Sic mea me domina deduxit sancta Maria.’ The meaning then is, I have been conducted to this altarstep in such a way that I should not touch _this_ earth with my bare foot. I am divinely protected and lifted above the world. And Godric understood, ‘statim intellexit quod anima sororis suae super coelestibus Angelorum choreis esset associata’ (p. 145). 11. #Nicholaes# occurs in AS. Chron. E. 1067 as Nicolaes. It corresponds to Nicolaus, which in the Latin hymns is always four syllables, and so, I think, it must be here. #godes druð#: comp. ‘dilectus Dei Nicholaus,’ Aberdeen Breviary; ‘amicus Dei,’ York Breviary, ii. col. 106; ‘et amico Dei magno | Nicolao condole,’ Anselm, 307/168, 9; ‘godes drut,’ Be Domes Dæge, 18/290.