327. _posternes in privité._ These private posterns are frequently alluded to in the reports of the Commissioners for the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. One of them, speaking of the abbey of Langden, says, "Wheras immediatly descendying fro my horse, I sent Bartlett your servant, with all my servantes to circumcept the abbay and surely to kepe _all bake dorres and startyng hoilles_, and I myself went alone to the abbottes logeying joyning upon the feldes and wode, _evyn lyke a cony clapper full of startyng hoilles_." (MS. Cotton. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 127.) Another commissioner (MS. Cotton. Cleop. E. iv, fol. 35), in a letter concerning the monks of the Charter-house in London, says, "These charterhowse monkes wolde be callyde solytary, but to the cloyster dore ther be above xxiiij. keys in the handes of xxiiij. persons, and hit is lyke my letters, unprofytable tayles and tydinges and sumtyme perverse concell commythe and goythe by reason therof. Allso to the buttrey dore ther be xij. sundrye keys in xij. [mens] handes wherin symythe to be small husbandrye." 351. _merkes of merchauntes._ Their ciphers or badges painted in the windows. For examples, see the note in Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. ii, p. 98, last edition. 481. _euelles._ Perhaps for _evel-les_, _i. e._ without evil. 534. _the Austyns._ The Austin Friars, or Friars Eremites of the order of St. Augustine, came into England about the year 1250. Before the end of the fourteenth century they possessed a great number of houses in this island. 566. _the foure ordres._ The four principal orders of Mendicant Friars. See note on the Vision, l. 116. 721. _harkne at Herdforthe._ This appears to be an allusion to some event which had recently occurred among the Franciscans at Hertford, or at Hereford: if the latter, perhaps they had been active in the persecution of Walter Brut. See below, l. 1309. 745. _than ther lefte in Lucifere._ Than there existed in Lucifer, before his fall. See before, the note on l. 681 of the Vision. 771. _couuen_. Probably an error of the old printed edition for _connen_. 869. _lath._ Perhaps an error of the printer of the first edition for _lay_. 911. Matth. vii, 15. 913. _werwolves._ People who had the power of turning themselves into, or were turned into, wolves. This fearful superstition, which is very ancient, was extremely prevalent in the middle ages. In French they were called _Loup-garous_. The history of a personage of this kind forms the subject of the Lai de Bisclaveret, by Marie de France. Sir Frederick Madden has published a very remarkable Early-English metrical romance on the subject of "William and the Werwolf." See on this superstition Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, pp. 620-622. 954. _Golias._ There is perhaps here an allusion to the famous satire on the Monkish orders entitled Apocalypsis Goliæ, printed among the poems of Walter Mapes.