OF SELBORNE. 359 



" 1485, & consec. 39." Then, on the 6th of August, Pres- 

 ton, in the presence of the other proctors, required that they 

 should be compelled to answer ; when they all allowed the 

 articles " fuisse & esse vera;" and the commissary at the 

 request of Preston, concluded the business, and appointed 

 Monday, August 8th, for giving his decree in the same church 

 of EssJier; and it was that day read, and contains a recapitu- 

 lation, with the sentence of union, &c. witnessed and attested. 



As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalen college 

 had obtained the decision of the commissary in their favour, 

 they proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to entreat his holi- 

 ness that he would give his sanction to the sentence of union. 

 Some difficulties were started at Rome; but they were sur- 

 mounted by the college agent, as appears by his letters from 

 that city. At length pope Innocent VIII. by a bull* bearing 

 date the 8th day of June, in the year of our Lord 1486, and in 

 the second year of his pontificate, confirmed what had been 

 done, and suppressed the convent. 



Thus fell the considerable and well-endowed Priory of Sel- 

 borne after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty-four 

 years : about seventy-four years after the suppression of 

 Priories alien by Henri/ V. and about fifty years before the 

 general dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII. The 

 founder, it is probable, had fondly imagined that the sacred- 

 ness of the institution, and the pious motives on which it was 

 established, might have preserved it inviolate to the end of 

 time yet it fell, 



" To teach us that God attributes to place 



(( No sanctity, if none be thither brought 



" By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell." 



Milton's Paradise Lost. 



a There is nothing remarkable in this bull of pope Innocent except the 

 statement of the annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is therein 

 estimated at IGO^or. auri; whereas bishop Godwin sets it at 337/. 15s. 

 6d. Now bjloren, so named, says Oamden, because made by Florentines, 

 was a gold coin of king Edward III. in value 6s. whereof 160 is not one 

 seventh part of 337/. 15s. 



