ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 333 
Item 32nd. The bishop says in this item that he had observed 
and found, in his several visitations, that the sacramental plate and 
cloths of the altar, surplices, &c., were sometimes left in such an 
uncleanly and disgusting condition as to make the beholders 
shudder with horror—‘‘ Quod aliquibus sunt horrori :” * he there- 
fore enjoins them for the future to see that the plate, cloths, and 
vestments, be kept bright, clean, and in decent order: and, what 
must surprise the reader, adds—that he expects for the future that 
the sacrist should provide for the sacrament good wine, pure and 
unadulterated ; and not, as had often been the practice, that which 
was sour, and tending to decay :—he says farther, that it seems 
quite preposterous to omit in sacred matters that attention to 
decent cleanliness, the neglect of which would disgrace a common 
convivial meeting.t 
Item 33rd says that though the relics of saints, the plate, holy 
vestments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by canon- 
ical institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn; yet, as the 
visitor finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he there- 
fore strictly enjoins the prior forthwith to recall those pledges, and 
to restore them to the convent ; and orders that all the papers and 
title-deeds thereto belonging should be safely deposited, and kept 
under three locks and keys. 
In the course of the “ Visitatio Notabilis,’ the constitutions of 
Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was after- 
wards Pope Adrian V., and died in 1276. His constitutions are in 
‘“‘Lyndewood's Provinciale,’ and were drawn up in the 52nd of 
laenry Lit, 
In the “‘ Visitatio Notabilis” the usual punishment is fasting on 
bread and beer; and in cases of repeated delinquency on bread 
and water. On these occasions guarta feria, et sexta feria, are 
mentioned often, and are to be understood of the days of the week 
numerically on which such punishment is to be inflicted. 
* “Men abhorred the offering of the Lord.”"—1 Sam. ii. 17. Strange as this account 
may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when first in orders, twice met with similar 
circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches belonging to two obscure villages. 
In the first he found the inside of the chalice covered with birds’ dung; and in the other the 
communion-cloth soiled with cabbage and the greasy drippings of a gammon of bacon. 
‘The good dame at the great farm-house, who was to furnish the cloth, being a notabl> 
woman, thought it best to save her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covere | 
her own table for two or three Sundays before. 
“s ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 
Corruget nares: ne non et cantharus, et lanx 
Ostendat tibi te.” 
