XIV.] OF SELBORNE. 203 



people of both sexes through their convent, as if a thoroughfare, 

 from whence many disorders may and have arisen." 



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

 Priory be so attended that no suspected and disorderly females, 

 ' suspectae et aliae inhoneste,' 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 keep shut until their first 

 choir-service is over in. the morning, at dinner time, and when 

 they meet at their evening collation. 1 



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 accept 

 of their statutable clothing year by year, and of demanding 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, accord- 

 ing to the rule of St. Augustine. 



In Item 9th 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 grave brother to accompany him. 



The injunction in Item 10th, 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. 2 He 



I A collation was a meal or repast on a fast day in lieu of a supper. 



II The rule alluded to in item 10th, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined the 

 Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augustine, See 

 GURTLERI Hist. Templariorum. 



