• In the Middle Ages titles of nobility were given to the saints and to other renowned personages of sacred history. Thus Boccaccio, in his story of Fra Cipolla, Decameron , Gior. VI Nov. 10, speaks of the Baron Messer Santo Antonio; and in Juan Lorenzo’s “ Poema de Alexandra ,” we have Don Job, Don Bacchus, and Don Satan. ↩
• The word donnea , which I have rendered “like a lover plays,” is from the Provençal domnear . In its old French form, dosnoier , it occurs in some editions of the “ Roman de la Rose ,” line 1305:⁠— “Les karoles jà remanoient; Car tuit li plusors s’en aloient O leurs amies umbroier Sous ces arbres pour dosnoier.” Chaucer translates the passage thus:⁠— “The daunces then ended ywere; For many of hem that daunced there Were, with hir loves, went away Under the trees to have hir play.” The word expresses the gallantry of the knight towards his lady. ↩