ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 289 



being a notable woman, thought it best to save her clean linen, and so sent 

 a foul cloth that had covered her own table for two or three Sundays 



12 . . . " ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 

 Corruget nares : ne non et cantharus, et lanx 

 Ostendat tibi te." G. W. 



LETTER XV 



THOUGH Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and 

 rigid in his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Sel- 

 borne, 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; 1 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." 2 



At this distance of time it seems a matter of great wonder 

 to us how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose mem- 

 bers 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 rev- 

 enues by fires among their buildings or large dilapidations from 

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

 the Priory of 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 subject to the importunity of the poor, who swarmed at 

 their gates to partake of doles and broken victuals. Of these 



