328 ANTIQUITIES 



In Item 9th is a complaint that some of the canons are 

 given to wander out of the precincts of the convent without 

 leave ; and that others ride to their manors and farms, under 

 pretence of inspecting the concerns of the society, when they 

 please, and stay as long as they please. But they are en- 

 joined never to stir either about their own private concerns or 

 the business of the convent without leave from the prior : 

 and no canon is to go alone, but to have a grave brother to 

 accompany him. 



The injunction in Item 10th, at this distance of time, 

 appears rather ludicrous; but the visitor seems to be very 

 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 

 a camisiis." c 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 llth the good bishop is very wroth with some of 

 the canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and sports- 

 men, 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, wish- 

 ing to extirpate this vice wholly from the convent, " radicibus 

 " extirpatrt" does absolutely enjoin the canons never inten- 

 tionally to be present at any public noisy tumultuous hunt- 

 ings; or to keep any hounds, by themselves or by others, 

 openly or by stealth, within the convent, or without.* 1 



c The rule alluded to in Item 10th ; of not sleeping naked, was enjoined 

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



See Gurtleri Hist, Templariorum. 



d Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the plea- 

 sures 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 ? 



