v. 790. _To weue in the stoule_] So Chaucer;
_Leg. of Philomene_, fol. 195.—_Workes_, ed. 1602.
and Hall; “On their heades bonets of Damaske syluer flatte _wouen in the stole_, and therupon wrought with gold,” &c. _Chron._ (_Hen. viii._) fol. vii. ed. 1548.—Mr. Albert Way observes to me that in _Prompt. Parv. MS. Harl._ 221, is “Lyncent werkynge instrument for sylke women. Liniarium,” while the ed. of 1499 has “Lyncet workinge _stole_;” and he supposes the _stole_ (i. e. stool) to have been a kind of frame, much like what is still used for worsted work, but, instead of being arranged like a cheval glass, that it was made like a stool,—the top being merely a frame or stretcher for the work.
v. 791. _With slaiis, with tauellis, with hedellis well drest_]—_slaiis_, i. e. sleys, weavers’ reeds: _tauellis_, see note, p. 94. v. 34: “_Heddles_, _Hedeles_, _Hiddles_. The small cords through which the warp is passed in a loom, after going through the reed.” _Et. Dict. of Scot. Lang._ by Jamieson, who cites from G. Douglas’s _Æneid_;
“With subtell slayis, and hir _hedeles_ slee, Riche lenze wobbis naitly weiffit sche.”
v. 794. _to enbrowder put them in prese_] i. e. put themselves in press (applied themselves earnestly) to embroider.
v. 795. _glowtonn_] Does it mean—ball, clue? or, as Mr. Albert Way suggests,—a sort of needle, a stiletto as it is now called,—something by which the silk was to be inwrought?
v. 796. _pirlyng_] “I _Pyrle_ wyer of golde or syluer I wynde it vpon a whele as sylke women do.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. cccxvii. (Table of Verbes).
v. 798. _tewly sylk_] Richardson in his _Dict._ under the verb _Tew_ places _tewly_, as derived from it, and cites the present passage. But _tewly_ seems to have nothing to do with that verb. “_Tuly_ colowre. Puniceus vel punicus.” _Prompt. Parv. MS. Harl._ 221. In _MS. Sloane_, 73. fol. 214, are directions “for to make bokerham _tuly_ or _tuly_ thred,” where it appears that this colour was “a manere of reed colour as it were of croppe mader,” that is, probably, of the tops or sprouts of the madder, which would give a red less intense or full: the dye was “safflour” (saffron?) and “asches of wyn [whin] ballis ybrent;” and a little red vinegar was to be used to bring the colour up to a fuller red.—For this information I am indebted to Mr. Albert Way.