306 THE ANTIQUITIES 



serious on the occasion, and says that it has been evidently 

 proved to him that some of the canons, living dissolutely 

 after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep naked in their 

 beds without their breeches and shirts, "absque femoralibus 

 et camisiis."^ He enjoins that these 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 dissipa- 

 tion, danger to the soul and body, and frequent expense ; 

 he, therefore, wishing to extirpate this vice wholly from 

 the convent, " radicibus extirpare," 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 14th 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 excommunication. 



^ The rule alluded to in Item loth, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined 

 the Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augustine. 

 See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum. 



2 Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the 

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

 Selborne 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 ? 



