Note 150 — IGNORANCE OF THE CLERGY IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

A slightly different version is found in A Hundred Mery Talys, No. lxix, “Of the franklyns sonne that cam to take orders.” The bishop says that Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth;—who was the father of Japheth? When the “scholar” returns home and tells his father how he had been puzzled by the bishop, he endeavours to enlighten his son thus: “Here is Colle, my dog, that hath three whelps; must not these three whelps have Colle for their sire?” Going back to the bishop, he informs his lordship that the father of Japheth was “Colle, my father’s dogge.” Return