Whitaker gives the following singular explanation of this passage:--"_Let dagge hus clothes_, probably, let them fall to the ground, or divested himself of them; for warriors are 'succinct' for battle as well as 'for speed!'" 14269. _A glazene howve._ I suppose this means that, in return for his gold, Physic gave him a hood of glass, _i. e._ a very frail protection for his person. 14367. _of the Marche of Walys._ Whitaker's text reads, _of the Marche of Yrelonde_. The clergy of the Welsh border appear, from allusions in other works, to have been proverbial for their ignorance and irregularity of life. 14438. Psal. cxlvi, 4. 14444. _wage menne to werre._ This is a curious account of the composition of an army in the fourteenth century. 14482. Exod. xx, 17. 14511. _suffre the dede in dette_, _i. e._, The friars persuade people to leave to them, under pretence of saving their souls, the property which was due to their creditors, and thus, after their death, their debts remain unpaid. 14615, 14617. _this lymytour ... he salvede so oure wommen._ The whole of this passage, taken with what precedes, is an amusing satire upon the limitour. Compare the description of the limitour given by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, ll. 208-271, who alludes to his kindness for the women. The limitour was a friar licensed to visit and beg within certain limits. His pertinacity and inquisitiveness in visiting, alluded to in the name given him in Piers Ploughman (Sir Penetrans-domos), is admirably satirized by Chaucer, in the opening of the "Wif of Bathes Tale:"-- In olde dayes of the kyng Arthour, Of which that Britouns speken gret honour, Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie; The elf-queen, with hir joly compaignye, Daunced ful oft in many a grene mede. This was the old oppynyoun, as I rede I speke of many hundrid yer ago; But now can no man see noon elves mo. For now the grete charité and prayeres Of lymytours and other holy freres, That sechen every lond and every streem, As thik as motis in the sonne-beem, Blesynge halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, Citees and burghes, castels hihe, and toures, Thropes and bernes, shepnes and dayeries, This makith that ther ben no fayeries: For ther as wont was to walken an elf, Ther walkith noon but the lymytour himself, In undermeles and in morwenynges, And saith his matyns and his holy thinges, As he goth in his lymytacioun. ------ NOTES TO THE CREED. 65. _a Minoure._ These were the Gray or Franciscan Friars, founded at the beginning of the thirteenth century by St. Francis of Assise. They are supposed to have come to England in 1224, when they settled, first at Canterbury, and afterwards at London.