314 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



of Richard Actedene his sister's husband, who had no child. He 

 was to present a pair of gloves of one penny value to the prior and 

 canons, to be given annually by the said Richard ; and to quit all 

 claim to the said lands in reversion, provided the prior and canons 

 would engage annually to pay to the king, through the hands of 

 his bailiffs of Aulton, ten shillings at four quarterly payments, "pro 

 omnibus serviciis, consuetudinibus, exactionibus, et demandis." 



This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger, and 

 lived probably at the spot now called Chapel-farm. The grant 

 bears date the lyth year of the reign of Henry III. (viz. 1233). 



It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for lands or 

 tenements that might be produced from my vouchers. I shall 

 therefore pass over all such for the present, and conclude this 

 letter with a remark that must strike every thinking person with 

 some degree of wonder. No sooner had a monastic institution 

 got a footing, but the neighbourhood began to be touched with a 

 secret and religious awe. Every person round was desirous to 

 promote so good a work ; and either by sale, by grant, or by gift 

 in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a benefactor. They who 

 had not lands to spare gave roads to accommodate the infant 

 foundation. The religious were not backward in keeping up this 

 pious propensity, which they observed so readily influenced the 

 breasts of men. Thus did the more opulent monasteries add 

 house to house, and field to field, and by degrees manor to manor, 

 till at last " there was no place left ; " but every district around 

 became appropriated to the purposes of their founders, and every 

 precinct was drawn into the vortex. 



LETTER VIII. 



OUR forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy and bustling, 

 and as important, as ourselves : yet have their names and trans- 

 actions been forgotten from century to century, and have sunk 

 into oblivion j nor has this happened only to the vulgar, but even 



