ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 339 



therefore enjoins them for the future to see that the plate, cloths, 

 and vestments, be kept bright, clean, anci in decent order : and, 

 what must surprise the reader, adds that he expects for the 

 future that the sacrist should provide for the sacrament good wine, 

 pure and unadulterated ; and not, as had often been the practice, 

 that which was sour, and tending to decay : he says farther, that 

 it seems quite preposterous to omit in sacred matters that atten- 

 tion to decent cleanliness, the neglect of which would disgrace a 

 common convivial meeting.* 



Item 33rd says that, though the relics of saints, the plate, holy 

 vestments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by 

 canonical institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn ; yet, 

 as the visitor finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he 

 therefore strictly enjoins the prior forthwith to recall those pledges, 

 and to restore them to the convent ; and orders that all the papers 

 and title-deeds thereto belonging should be safely deposited, and 

 kept under three locks and keys. 



In the course of the " Visitatio Notabilis " the constitutions of 

 Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was 

 afterwards Pope Adrian V., and died in 1276. His constitutions 

 are in " Lyndewood's Provinciate," and were drawn up in the 

 52nd of Henry III. 



In the " Visitatio Notabilis " the usual punishment is fasting on 

 bread and beer ; and in cases of repeated delinquency on bread 

 and water. On these occasions quarta feria, et sexta feria, are 

 mentioned often, and are to be understood of the days of the 

 week numerically on which such punishment is to be inflicted. 



twice met with similar circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches 

 belonging to two obscure villages. In the first he found the inside of the 

 chalice covered with birds' dung ; and in the other the communion-cloth soiled 

 with cabbage and the greasy drippings of a gammon of bacon. The good 

 dame at the great farm-house, who was to furnish the cloth, being a notable 

 woman, thought it best to save her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had 

 covered her own table for two or three Sundays before. 



* " ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 



Corruget nares : ne non et cantharus, et lanx 

 Ostendat tibi te." 



