6691. Alluding to St. Augustine's treatise De Opere Monachorum ad Aurelium episc. Carthaginensem. Of course he does not mention the Templars, &c.; these are only noticed by way of example.
6693. templers; 'the Knights Templars were founded in 1119 by Hugh de Paganis. Their habit was a white garment with a red cross on the breast. See Fuller, Holy Warre, ii. 16, v. 2.'—Bell. The Knights Hospitallers are described in the same work, ii. 4. The Knights of Malta belonged to this order.
6694. chanouns regulers, Canons living under a certain rule; see the Chan. Yemannes Tale.
6695. 'The White Monks were Cistercians, a reformed order of Benedictines; the Black, the unreformed.'—Bell.
6713. I may abey, 'I may suffer for it'; see Cant. Ta. C 100. The F. text varies.
6749. 'In the rescue of our law (of faith)'; i. e. of Christianity.
6763. William of Saint-Amour, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and a canon of Beauvais, about A.D. 1260, wrote a book against the friars, entitled De Periculis nouissimorum Temporum. He was answered by St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas, his book was condemned by Pope Alexander IV, and he was banished from France (see l. 6777). See the note in Méon's edition of Le Roman.
6782. This noble, this brave man; F. 'Le vaillant homme.'
6787. ich reneyed, that I should renounce.