And Crist cam and confermede, And holy-churche made, And in sond a sygne wrot, And seide to the Jewes, 'That seeth hym synneles, Cesse nat, ich hote, To stryke with stoon other with staf This strompett to dethe.' _Qui vestrum sine peccato est, etc._ For-thi ich consaily alle Cristene Cleregie to honoure, etc. 7453. Luke xii, 38. 7461. Heb. xii, 6. 7464. Psalm xxii, 4. 7470. _makynges._ 7483. _make._--There is a curious analogy between the Greek and the Teutonic languages in the name given to the poet--the Greek [Greek: poiêtês] (from [Greek: poiein]), the Anglo-Saxon _scóp_ (from _sceopan_, to make or create), and the Middle-English _maker_, preserved in the later Scottish _makkar_ (also applied to a poet), have all the same signification. In the Neo-Latin tongues a different, though somewhat analogous, word was used: the French and Anglo-Norman _trouvère_, and the Provençal _trobador_, signify a finder or inventor. 7484. Catonis Distich. iii, 5. 7500. 1 Cor. xiii, 13. Nunc autem manent fides, spes, charitas, tria hæc: major autem horum est charitas. 7528, &c. _Aristotle_, _Ypocras_, and _Virgile_.--These three names were the great representatives of ancient science and literature in the middle ages. Aristotle represented philosophy, in its most general sense; Virgil represented literature in general, and more particularly the ancient writers who formed the _grammar_ course of scholastic learning, whether verse or prose; Ypocras, or Hippocrates, represented medicine. They are here introduced to illustrate the fact that men of science and learning, as well as warriors and rich men, experience the vicissitudes of fortune. 7534. _Felice._ Perhaps this name is only introduced for the sake of alliteration. 7536. _Rosamounde._ I suppose the reference is to "fair Rosamond." 7554. Luc. vi, 38. 7567. John iii, 8. 7572. John iii, 11. 7582. John iii, 8. 7600. _thorugh caractes._ It was the popular belief in the middle ages, that while the Jews were accusing the woman taken in adultery, Christ wrote with his staff on the ground the sins of the accusers, and that when they perceived this they dropped their accusation in confusion at finding that their own guilt was known. See this point curiously illustrated in Mr. Halliwell's Coventry Mysteries, pp. 220, 221. These are the _characters_ alluded to in Piers Ploughman. 7624. Luke vi, 37. 7701. 1 Cor. iii, 19. 7709. Luke ii, 15. 7714. Matth. ii, 1. 7721. Luke ii, 7. 7779. Psalm xxxi, 1. 7795. Luke vi, 39. The ignorance and inefficiency of the parish priests appear to have become proverbial in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the latter century a canon of Lilleshul in Shropshire, named John Myrk, or Myrkes, composed an English poem, or rather metrical treatise, on their duties, which he commences by applying to them this same aphorism of our Saviour:--