12. The Rules of St Benedict granted peculiar honours and
immunities to monks who had lived fifty years — the jubilee
period — in the order. The usual reading of the words ending
the two lines is “loan” or “lone,” and “alone;” but to walk alone
does not seem to have been any peculiar privilege of a friar,
while the idea of precedence, or higher place at table and in
processions, is suggested by the reading in the text.
13. Borel folk: laymen, people who are not learned; “borel”
was a kind of coarse cloth.