334 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
EP Pe RON: 
THOUGH Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid in 
his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he 
was on the whole a liberal friend and benefactor to that convent, 
which, like every society or individual that fell in his way, partook 
of the generosity and benevolence of that munificent prelate. 
“In the year 1377 William of Wykeham, out of his mere good 
will and liberality, discharged the whole debts of the prior and 
convent of Selborne, to the amount of one hundred and ten marks 
eleven shillings and sixpence ;* and, a few years before he died, he 
made a free gift of one hundred marks to the same priory: on 
which account the prior and convent voluntarily engaged for the 
celebration of two masses a day by two canons of the convent for 
ten years, for the bishop’s welfare, if he should live so long; and 
for his soul if he should die before the expiration of this term.” TF 
At this distance of time it seems matter of great wonder to us 
how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose members were 
exempt by their very institution from every means of personal and 
family expense, could possibly run in debt without squandering 
their revenues in a manner incompatible with their function. 
Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in their revenues 
by fires among their buildings, or large diiapidations from storms, 
&c. ; but no such accident appears to have befallen the priory at 
Sclborne. Those situate on public roads, or in great towns where 
there were shrines of saints, were liable to be intruded on by 
travellers, devotees and pilgrims ; and were subject to the impor- 
tunity of the poor, who swarmed at their gates to partake of doles 
and broken victuals. Of these disadvantages some convents used 
to complain, and especially those at Canterbury; but this priory, 
from its sequestered situation, could seldom be subject to either of 
these inconveniences, and therefore we must attribute its frequent 
debts and embarrassments, well endowed as it was, to the bad 
conduct of its members, and a general inattention to the interests 
of the institution. 
* Yet in ten years time we find, by the ‘‘ Notabilis Visitatio,”’ that all their relics, plate, 
vestments, title-deeds, &c., were in pawn. 
t Lowth’s Life of Wykeham. 
