Chapter Sibylline Verses to Significavit of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

they do now, but we find over and over again in ancient documents these words: “This [grant] is signed with the sign of the cross for its greater assurance (or) greater inviolability,” and after the sign follows the name of the donor. (See Rymer's Fœdera, vol. i. pt. i.)

Signs instead of words. A symbolic language made by gestures. Members of religious orders bound to silence, communicate with each other in this way. John, a monk, gives, in his Life of St. Odo, a number of signs for bread, tart, beans, eggs, fish, cheese, honey, milk, cherries, onions, etc. (See Sussex Archaeological Collection, vol. iii. p. 190.)

Significavit A writ of Chancery given by the ordinary to keep an excommunicate in prison till he submitted to the authority of the Church. The writ, which is now obsolete, used to begin with “Significavit nobis venerabilis pater,” etc. Chaucer says of his Sompnour-

“And also ware him of a `significavit.' ”
Canterbury Tales (Prologue), 664.