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they are so strictly bound by the rule of St. Augustine at 

 stated times, and wholly to abstain from frivolous conversation. 



Item 4th. " Not to permit such frequent passing of secular 

 people of both sexes through their convent, as if a thorough- 

 fare, from whence many disorders may and have arisen." 



Item 5th. " To take care that the doors of their church 

 and priory be so attended to that no suspected and disorderly 

 females, 'suspectae et alise inhonestae/ pass through their choir 

 and cloister in the dark ; " and to see that the doors of their 

 church between the nave and the choir, and the gates of their 

 cloister opening into the fields, be constantly kept shut until 

 their first choir service is over in the morning, at dinner time, 

 and when they meet at their evening collation. 3 



Item 6th mentions that several of the canons are found to 

 be very ignorant and illiterate, and enjoins the prior to see 

 that they be better instructed by a proper master. 



Item 8th. The canons are here accused of refusing to ac- 

 cept of their statutable clothing year by year, and of demand- 

 ing a certain specified sum of money, as if it were their annual 

 rent and due. This the bishop forbids, and orders that the 

 canons shall be clothed out of the revenue of the priory, and 

 the old garments be laid by in a chamber and given to the 

 poor according to the rule of St. Augustine. 



In Item Qth 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 enjoined 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 brave brother to accompany him. 



The injunction in Item loth 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 camisiis." 4 He 

 enjoins that these culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, 

 especially if they shall be found to be faulty a third time ; and 



