33 6 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, especially if they shall 

 be found to be faulty a third time ; and threatens the prior and 

 sub-prior with suspension if they do not correct this enormity. 



In Item nth the good bishop is very wroth with some of the 

 canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and sportsmen, 

 keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting- matches. These 

 pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipation, danger to the soul 

 and body, and frequent expense ; he, therefore, wishing to extir- 

 pate this vice wholly from the convent, " radicibus exlirpare" does 

 absolutely enjoin the canons never intentionally to be present at 

 any public noisy tumultuous huntings ; or to keep any hounds, by 

 themselves or by others, openly or by stealth, within the convent, 

 or without.* 



In Item i2th he forbids the canons in office to make their 

 business a plea for not attending the service of the choir; since by 

 these means either divine worship is neglected or their brother 

 canons are over-burdened. 



By Item i4th we are informed that the original number of 

 canons at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen ; but that at this 

 visitation they were found to be let down to eleven. The visitor 

 therefore strongly and earnestly enjoins them that, with all due 

 speed and diligence, they should proceed to the election of proper 

 persons to fill up the vacancies, under pain of the greater excom- 

 munication. 



In Item i7th the prior and canons are accused of suffering, 

 through neglect, notorious dilapidations to take place among their 

 manorial houses and tenements, and in the walls and inclosures of 

 the convent itself, to the shame and scandal of the institution ; 

 they are therefore enjoined, under pain of suspension, to repair all 

 defects within the space of six months. 



* Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the pleasures 

 of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Canterbury should 

 languish after hunting, when from their situation so near the precincts of 

 Wolmer Forest, the king's hounds must have been often in hearing, and 

 sometimes in sight from their windows. If the bishop was so offended at 

 these sporting canons, what would he have said to our modern fox-hunting 

 divines 



