ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 361 
universitas vestra, quod licet nos prioratui de Selbourne, &c., pie 
compacientes sollicitudines pastorales, labores, diligentias quam 
plurimas per nos & commissarios nostros pro reformatione status 
ejus impenderimus, justicia id poscente; nihilominus tamen,” &c., 
as in the article—to “desperatur,” dated “in manerio nostro de 
Esher, Aug. 3d., 1485, & consec. 39.” Then on the 6th of August, 
Preston, in the presence of the other proctors, required that they 
should be compelled to answer ; when they all allowed the articles, 
“ fuisse & esse vera ;” and the commissary, at the request of Preston, 
concluded the business, and appointed Monday, August 8th, for 
giving his decree in the same church of Esher; and it was that 
day read, and contains a recapitulation, with the sentence of union, 
&c., witnessed and attested. 
As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalene College had 
obtained the decision of the commissary in their favour, they 
proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to entreat his holiness that 
he would give his sanction to the sentence of union. Some 
difficulties were started at Rome ; but they were surmounted by the 
college agent, as appears by his letters from that city. At length 
Pope Innocent ViII., by a bull* bearing date the 8th of June, in 
the year of our Lord 1486, and in the second year of his pontifi- 
cate, confirmed what had been done, and suppressed the convent. 
Thus fell the considerable and well-endowed priory of Selborne 
after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty-four years; about 
seventy-four years after the suppression of priories alien by Henry 
V., and about fifty years before the general dissolution of monas- 
teries by Henry VIII. The founder, it is probable, had fondly 
imagined that the sacredness of the institution, and the pious 
motives on which it was established, might have preserved it 
inviolate to the end of time—yet it fell— 
““To teach us that God attributes to place 
No sanctity, if none be thither brought 
By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell.”” 
Mi.ton’s Paradise Lost. 
* There is nothing remarkable in this bull of Pope Innocent, except the statement of the 
annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is therein estimated at 160 flor. auri; 
whereas Bishop Godwin sets it at 3372. 15s. 64d. Now a floren, so named. says Camden 
because made by Florentius, was a gold coin of King Edward III., in value 6s., whereof 
16u is not one seventh part of 3372. 15s. 64d. 
