712 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
“Him who defende hit fro the feend.” The church is to have 
his body. He has paid his tithes regularly and deserves its 
offices. His wife aud children shall have his goods. His ideas 
of what a religious life should be are distinctly set forth, and 
the whole is replete with expressions of the testator’s faith. 
Chaucer in his Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1380) 1 has Criseyde 
make her testament before leaving Troy. She declares that 
her clothes shall be black in token of what she thinks of as her 
death her leaving Troilus, and to her lover she bequeaths her 
heart and her “woful goost.” 
We have the Testament again in the Knightes Tale (c. 
1385). Arcite dying bequeaths the service of his spirit to his 
love. 1 2 
In Gower’s Confessio Amantis (1390), Venus is made to send 
by Gower a message to Chaucer urging him to make his testa¬ 
ment of love. 3 Here Chaucer is told in his old age to make, as 
his iinal service to Venus, his last will and testament of love 
just as Gower to crown his service has made a confession of 
love. This testament Venus promises to have recorded in her 
court. It must, then, have been something like the legal docu¬ 
ment that she wanted. 
Thomas ITsk’s Testament of Love, written about 1387, is 
rather a testament of divine love. 4 It attempts to teach fidelity 
to religious principles as taught by the church. It also con¬ 
tains something of the autobiographical and the confession ele¬ 
ments of the Testament. 
Hoccleve’s Le Mai Regie , 5 a poem written in 1406, is really 
a confession testament, although the word testament is not used 
therein. The author deplores his loss of health and the fact 
that he is ripe for the grave. Hjis disease has been brought on 
by a dissolute life. He gives an account of his youthful ex¬ 
cesses and promises if he recovers to try to lead a better life. 
1 Book IV, lines 778 ft There is no idea of bequest in the Italian 
original. The word “testimonio” may have suggested the testament to 
Chaucer. See II Filostrato, book IV, stanzas xc, xci. 
2 Canterbury Tales, A, lines 2768 ft There is again no idea of be¬ 
quest in the original. Cf. Lo Teseide, X, stanza 64. 
3 Bk. VIII, lines 2941 ft 
4 See Skeat’s edition of Chaucer, vol. VII. 
6 F. J. Furnival, Hoccleve's Works, (E. E. T. S.), p. 25. 
