ANTIQUITIES OP SELBORNE. 



LETTER XV. 



THOUGH Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid 

 in his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he 

 was on the whole a liberal friend and benefactor to that convent, 

 which, like every society or individual that fell in his way, partook 

 of the generosity and benevolence of that munificent prelate. 



"In the year 1377 William of Wykeham, out of his mere good 

 will and liberality, discharged the whole debts of the prior and 

 convent of Selborne, to the amount of one hundred and ten marks 

 eleven shillings and sixpence f and, a few years before he died, 

 he made a free gift of one hundred marks to the same priory : on 

 which account the prior and convent voluntarily engaged for the 

 celebration of two masses a day by two canons of the convent for 

 ten years, for the bishop's welfare, if he should live so long ; and 

 for his soul if he should die before the expiration of this term." f 



At this distance of time it seems matter of great wonder to us 

 how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose members were 

 exempt by their very institution from every means of personal and 

 family expense, could possibly run in debt without squandering 

 their revenues in a manner incompatible with their function. 



Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in their 

 revenues by fires among their buildings or large dilapidations 

 from storms, etc. ; but no such accident appears to have befallen 

 the priory at Selborne. Those situate on public roads, or in 

 great towns where there were shrines of saints, were liable to be 

 intruded on by travellers, devotees, and pilgrims ; and were sub- 

 ject to the importunity of the poor, who swarmed at their gates to 

 partake of doles and broken victuals. Of these disadvantages 

 some convents used to complain, and especially those at Canter- 

 bury ; but this priory, from its sequestered situation, could seldom 

 be subject to either of these inconveniences, and therefore we 



* Yet in ten years' time we find, by the "Notabilis Visitatio," that all their 

 relics, plate, vestments, title-deeds, etc., were in pawn, 

 t Lowth's Life of Wykeham. 



