[118] Grises, greeses, or _steps_, for it was spelt various ways according to the caprice of the writer, from the Latin _gressus_.
[119] The _roodeloft_ was the place where the cross stood; it was generally placed over the passage out of the church into the chancel.
[120] The passage within brackets is not to be found in any of the more recent MSS., nor in Dr. Wordsworth's edition.
[121] Erasmus, in a letter to Aleander, dwells with delight upon this custom:
"Quanquam si Britanniæ dotes satis pernosses Fauste, næ tu alatis pedibus, huc accurreres; et si podagra tua non sineret, Dædalum te fieri optares. Nam ut e pluribus unum quiddam attingam. Sunt hic nymphæ divinis vultibus, blandae, faciles, et quas tu tuis Camænis facile anteponas. _Est præterea mos nunquam satis laudatus_: Sive quo venias omnium osculis exciperis; sive discedas aliquo, osculis demitteris: redis? redduntur suavia; venitur ad te? propinantur suavia: disceditur abs te? dividuntur basia: occuritur alicubi? basiatur affatim: denique, quocunque te moveas, suaviorum plena sunt omnia. Quæ si tu, Fauste, gustasses semel quam sint mollicula, quam fragrantia, profecto cuperes non decennium solum, ut Solon fecit, sed ad mortem usque in Anglia peregrinari." _Erasmi Epistol._ p. 315, edit. 1642. "It becometh nat therefore the persones religious to folowe _the maner of secular persones_, that in theyr congresses and commune metyngs or departyng done use to kysse, take hands, or such other touchings, that good religious persones shulde utterly avoyde." _Whytford's Pype of Perfection._ fol. 213. b. A. D. 1532. _W._
[122] This name is spelt _Creeky_ and _Crykky_ in the autograph MS. In Wordsworth's edition it is Crokey. Grove has it _Crockly_, and two of the MSS. copies _Crokir_. I know not whether I have divined the true orthography, but there was a noble family of this name at the time.
[123] _Evensong._ "Which persons for their waiting befoir noon hath licence at afternoon to go about their own business from the saide noon to iij of the clocke that evensong begin."
[124] The shalme, or shawm, was a wind instrument like a hautboy, with a swelling protuberance in the middle. In "Commenius's Visible World," translated by Hoole, 1659, the Latin word _gingras_ is translated by shawn, and the form of the instrument is represented as below. Its proper name appears to have been _shawme_; it is derived from the Teutonic. Drayton mentions it as shrill-toned: 'E'en from the shrillest _shaum_ unto the cornamute.'