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_.
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.
967. _the kynrede of Caym._ In the popular belief of the middle ages, hob-goblins and evil spirits (which haunted the wilds and the waters) literally, and bad men figuratively, were represented as being descended from the first murderer, Cain. In Old-English poetry, _Caymes kyn_ is a common epithet for very wicked people. In the Anglo-Saxon romance of Beowulf, the Grendel is said to be of "Cain's kin."
1051. _wytnes on Wyclif._ In the persecutions to which Wycliffe was subjected for his opinions in 1382, his most violent opponents were the Mendicants. He died in 1384, quietly at his living of Lutterworth.