ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 333 



LETTER XIV. 



"!N the year 1373 Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, held a visita- 

 tion of his whole diocese ; not only of the secular clergy through 

 the several deaneries, but also of the monasteries, and religious 

 houses of all sorts, which he visited in person. The next year he 

 sent his commissioners with power to correct and reform the 

 several irregularities and abuses which he had discovered in the 

 course of his visitation. 



"Some years afterward, the bishop having visited three several 

 times all the religious houses throughout his diocese, and being 

 well informed of the state and condition of each, and of the par- 

 ticular abuses which required correction and reformation, besides 

 the orders which he had already given, and the remedies which 

 he had occasionally applied by his commissioners, now issued his 

 injunctions to each of them. They were accommodated to their 

 several exigencies, and intended to' correct the abuses introduced, 

 and to recall them all to a strict observation of the rules of their 

 respective orders. Many of these injunctions are still extant, and 

 are evident monuments of the care and attention with which he 

 discharged this part of his episcopal duty."* 



Some of these injunctions I shall here produce ; and they are 

 such as will not fail, I think, to give satisfaction to the antiquary, 

 both as never having been published before, and as they are a 

 curious picture of monastic irregularities at that time. 



The documents that I allude to are contained in the " Notabilis 

 Visitatio de Seleburne," held at the priory of that place, by 

 Wykeham in person, in the year 1387. 



This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins of parch- 

 ment ; the one large, and the other smaller, and consists of a pre- 

 amble, thirty-six items, and a conclusion, which altogether evince 

 the patient investigation of the visitor, for which he had always been 

 so remarkable in all matters of moment, and how much he had at 

 heart the regularity of those institutions, of whose efficacy in their 

 prayers for the dead he was so firmly persuaded. As the bishop 

 * See Lowth's Life of Wykeham. 



