were agast, a little this will be thought long in the date of our Dirte, in a drie Averell a thousand and three hundred, twise thirtie and ten, &c._ I reade also in the 20. of Henrie the eight, Sir James Spencer being maior, six bakers of Stratford were merced in the Guildhall of London, for baking under the size appoynted. These bakers of Stratford left serving of this citie, I know not uppon what occasion, about 30 yeares since." 8572. _a drye Aprill._ This is without doubt the dry season placed by Fabyan in the year 1351, which, as he describes it, began with the month of April. The difference of the date arises probably from a different system of computation. Fabian says, "In the sommer of this xxvii yeare, it was so drie that it was many yeres after called the drie sommer. For from the latter ende of March, till the latter ende of Julye, fell lytle rayne or none, by reason whereof manye inconveniences ensued." 8576. _Whan Chichestre was maire._ According to Fabyan, John Chichester was mayor only once, in 1368, 1369, which was the period of the "thirde mortalytie." The other authorities seem to agree in giving this as the year of Chichester's mayoralty. He may perhaps have been mayor more than once. See INTRODUCTION. 8645. Galat. i, 10. 8685. Psalm x, 7. 8707, 8708. The two persons mentioned here (the shoemaker of Southwark and dame Emma of Shoreditch) were probably eminent sorcerers and fortune-tellers of the time. 8769-8778. To understand fully this passage, it must be borne in mind that the corn lands were not so universally hedged as at present, and that the portions belonging to different persons were separated only by a narrow furrow, as is still the case in some of the uninclosed lands in Cambridgeshire. 8812. _Brugges._ Bruges was the great mart of continental commerce during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. 8813. _Pruce-lond_--Prussia, which was then the farthest country in the interior of Europe with which a regular trade was carried on by the English merchants. 8827. Matth. vi, 21. 8858. Luke vi, 25. 8879. Psalm ci, 7. 8891. _a lady of sorwe._ The old printed edition has a _laye of sorow_. 8900. Whitaker has no division here, but continues the previous _passus_, and omits many lines and has many variations in what follows. 8903. _I slepe therinne o nyghtes._ This passage is curious, because at the time the poem was written, it was the custom for all classes of society to go to bed quite naked, a practice which is said to have been not entirely laid aside in the sixteenth century. We see constant proofs of this practice in the illuminations of old manuscripts. The following memorial lines are written in the margin of a MS. of the thirteenth century:--