XIV.] OF SELBORNE. 201 



LETTER XIV. 



" IN the year 1373 Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, held a 

 visitation of his whole diocese ; not only of the secular clergy 

 through the several deaneries, but also of the monasteries, and 

 religious houses of all sorts, which he visited in person. The 

 next year he sent his commissioners with power to correct and 

 reform the several irregularities and abuses which he had dis- 

 covered in the course of his visitation. 



" Some years afterward, the bishop having visited three 

 several times all the religious houses throughout his diocese, 

 and being well informed of the state and condition of each, 

 and of the particular abuses which required correction and 

 reformation, besides the orders which he had already given, 

 and the remedies which he had occasionally applied by his 

 commissioners, now issued his injunctions to each of them. 

 They were accommodated to their several exigencies, and 

 intended to correct the abuses introduced, and to recall them 

 all to a strict observation of the rules of their respective orders. 

 Many of these injunctions are still extant, and are evident 

 monuments of the care and attention with which he discharged 

 this part of his episcopal duty." 1 



Some of these injunctions I shall here produce; and they 

 are such as will not fail, I think, to give satisfaction to the 

 antiquary, both as never having been published before, and 

 as they are a curious picture of monastic irregularities at 

 that time. 



The documents that I allude to are contained in the Notabilis 

 Visitatio de Selebourne, held at the Priory of that place, by 

 Wykeham in person, in the year 1387. 



This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins of 

 parchment ; the one large, and the other smaller, and consists 

 of a preamble, thirty-six items, and a conclusion, which alto- 

 gether evince the patient investigation of the visitor, for which 

 lie had always been so remarkable in all matters of moment, 



1 See Lowth's " Life of Wykeham." 

 VOL. II. D D 



