russet and black.--_Alvearie_, A.D. 1586.--F. [In the Middle
Ages country housewives mostly made their own colours, and this was most
likely made from bilberries, which children still sometimes call
"poke-berrys" or "puckers," because of their astringent effect upon the
lips.--W.]

[158] A _jag_ was first a notch, a chink, then perhaps any ornamental
pendant, ribbon, or other, to one's dress. A saddler was a _jagger_.--W.

[159] _Ver d'oye._ Goose-turd greene; a greenish yellow; or a colour which
is between a green and a yellow.--_Cotgrave._--F.

[160] _Verd gay._ A popinjay greene.--_Cotgrave._--F.

[161] For Chaucer's complaints of the men and women's dress of his day see
his _Parson's Tale_, Part II., of Confession, _De Superbia_. For a ballad
on the fantastic dresses of Charles I.'s time see _Roxburgh Collections_,
I. 476; Ballad Society's Reprint, ii. 117 and 97. And on the point
generally see the Percy Society's _Poems on Costume_.--F.

[162] See Andrew Boorde's _Dyetary of Helth_, 1542, Early English Text
Society, 1870, for a description of how to build houses, and manage them
and men's income, and what food folk should eat.--F.

[163] Moss, in the Gawthorp Accounts.--F.

[164] This was in the time of general idleness.--H.

[165] See the interesting account in _Holinshed_, iii. 1081-82, of how the
good young King Edward VI., mov'd by a sermon of Bishop Ridley's, talkt
with him about means for relieving the poor, and on his suggestion resolvd
to begin with those of London, and wrote to the Lord Mayor of London, Sir
Richard Dobs, about it. Dobs, Ridley, two aldermen, and six commoners, got
up a committee of twenty-four. "And in the end, after sundrie meetings
(for by meane of the good diligence of the bishop it was well followed),
they agreed vpon a booke that they had deuised, wherein first they
considered of nine speciall kinds and sorts of poore people, and those
same they brought in these three degrees:

{ The poore by impotencie.
Three degrees of poore { Poor by casualtie.
{ Thriftlesse poore.

1. The poore by impotencie { 1. The fatherlesse poore mans child.
are also diuided into { 2. The aged, blind, and lame.
three kinds, that is to { 3. The diseased person, by leprosie,
saie: dropsie, etc.

2. The poore by casualtie are { 4. The wounded souldier