Bale (n.) - honour, dignity among men.
Than a ryche man of Rome relyede to his byerns:
"It sall repent vs full sore and we ryde forthire!
ghone are bolde bosturs at syche bale wyrkez;
It befell hym full foule at am so fyrste namede."- Anonymous: The alliterative Morte Arthure (1440)
The Middle-English Word of the Day is selected from Mayhew and Skeat's
"Concise Dictionary of Middle English."
As found on Greg Lindahl's website
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/concise/concise.html
The example text was found at the Middle English Collection of the University of Virginia Library.
http://etext.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html
