ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 293 



LETTER XVII 



INFORMATION being sent to Rome respecting the havoc and 

 spoil that was carrying on among the revenues and lands of 

 the Priory of Selborne, as we may suppose by the bishop of 

 Winchester, its visitor, Pope Martin, 1 as soon as the news 

 of these proceedings came before him, issued forth a bull, in 

 which he enjoins his commissary immediately to revoke all the 

 property that had been alienated. 



In this instrument his holiness accuses the prior and canons 

 of having granted away (they themselves and their predeces- 

 sors) to certain clerks and laymen their tithes, lands, rents, 

 tenements, and possessions, to some of them for their lives, to 

 others for an undue term of years, and to some again for a 

 perpetuity, to the great and heavy detriment of the monas- 

 tery; and these leases were granted, he continues to add, under 

 their own hands, with the sanction of an oath and the renun- 

 ciation of all right and claims, and under penalties, if the right 

 was not made good. But it will be best to give an abstract 

 from the bull. 



N. 298. Pope Martin's bull touching the revoking of cer- 

 taine things alienated from the Priory of Seleburne. Pontif. 

 sui ann. i. 



" Martinus Eps. servus servorum Dei. Dilecto filio Priori de 

 Suthvale 2 Wyntonien, dioc. Salutem & apostolicam ben. Ad 

 audientiam nostram pervenit quam tarn dilecti filii prior et 

 conventus monasterii de Seleburn per Priorem soliti guber- 

 nari ordinis S u . Augustini Winton, dioc. quam de predeces- 

 sores eorum decimas, terras, redditus, domos, possessiones, 

 vineas, 3 et quedam alia bona ad monasterium ipsum spectan- 

 tia, datis super hoc litteris, interpositis juramentis, factis re- 

 nuntiationibus, et penis adjectis, in gravem ipsius monasterii 

 lesionem nonnullis clericis et laicis, aliquibus eorum ad vitam, 

 quibusdam vero ad non modicum tempus, & aliis perpetuo ad 

 firmam, vel sub censu annuo concesserunt ; quorum aliqui 

 dicunt super hiis a sede aplica in communi forma confirma- 

 tionis litteras impetrasse. Quia vero nostra interest lesis mo- 

 nasteriis subvenire [He the Pope here commands] ea ad jus 

 et proprietatem monasterii studeas legitime revocare," etc. 



