I give many of the new words and phrases, well worn as they now seem, which crop up for the first time, or for all but the first time, in the Handlyng Synne:
To wake a corpse.
To waste stores.
To ley a waiour (wager).
The Saturday was doun (finished).
Besides these, we find for the first time other words, most of them common enough now; such as, to betroth, to bestead, to hap, burble (bubble), lyʓtning, welfare, forsayde, shameful, boastful, ruefully, a sory present, a trewman, umwhile (the Scottish umquhile). Ládman (dux) is turned into lodesman; a word something like our loadstar.
We now light upon a well-known by-word,
‘The nere þe cherche, þe fyrþer fro Gode.’ — Page 286.
St. Æthelthryth, the Patroness of Ely, is shortened into St. Audre, in page 325. The poet had doubtless knelt at her shrine, on his way from Lincolnshire to Cambridge. Of all our English clippings and parings, none is more startling than the contraction of this Saint's name. Botolphston was later to be cut down to Boston. Robert gives original tales of events that happened in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Kesteven in his own time; though he is too discreet to set down the names of the misdoers.
I print in italics the remarkable phrases first found in this poem. The stock of true English words had every year been getting scantier, and new resources seemed now to be called for. The poet was not
