Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XX F7. GEORGE GASCOIGNE. 467775. Carde, cared ; cf. rulde for ruledin 1, 771.777. Baiidhin, ' a very rich kind of stuff, the web being gold and thewoof silk, with embroidery.'—Nares. It is derived from the Low LatinBalderhtius, an adjective formed from Baldacca, which again is formedfrom Bagdad, the Persian city, whence it came. It was first introducedinto England in the thirteenth century.Outworks, fantastic patterns in lace, &c.783. Cento por Cento, cent per cent ; as much again. Gascoigne speaksironically here, in saying that merchants are not wont to do the thingswhich he enumerates.784. Browne paper. Mr. Hazlitt guesses this to mean accommodationbills.785. Morrice-hells, bells used for the morris-dance, in which mummersdisported themselves. The 1st of ]\Iay wag a favourite day for suchdiversions.Here the word probably means masquerades.Byllets, love-letters.787. Father Derbies bands, handcuffs. Why so called, I know not ;but ' darbies ' is still a slang term for the same.788. ' To restrain their steps by the staff of statute-staple.' A certainkind of bond was named astatute-merchant, or a statute-staple, because itwas sometimes acknowledged before one of the clerks of statutes-merchant,and the mayor of the staple; see the explanation in Blount's'NofxoXf^tfcov, which is quoted by Nares. Hence statute-staple meanssimply a bond ; but in this particular passage it is jocularly applied tothat particular bond which was exercised by fastening a prisoner by achain to a staple in a wall ; hence ' by statute-staples staffe 'meanshere, by the support of a prison-wall staple.789. ' To compel young roysterers, by a legal recognisance or obligation,to read arithmetic daily ; ' i. e. to learn accounts by beingfrequently dunned for payment of debts contracted.791. Wood Street and Bread Street, which turn out of Cheapside, andPoultry, which is a continuation of it, each contained a prison called acounter.793.See next line.Fell, skin. It is the A. S.fel, equivalent to La.t. pellis.817. Are not, said ironically; he means, they are proud, &c. Thelines beginning not ofie of these, are equally ironical.835. Lev. XXV. 36, 37. All usury was forbidden by the canon-law.839. A waspe. This well illustrates a passage in Pierce the Ploughman'sCrede, 1. 648, where it is said of a friar'There is no waspe in this werlde that will wilfulloker [more willingly']styngen.'