208 THE ANTIQUITIES [LETT. 



LETTER XV. 



THOUGH Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid in 

 his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, 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; l 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 en- 

 gaged 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 expira- 

 tion of this term," 2 



At this distance of time it seems matter of great wonder to us 

 how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose members 

 were exempt by their very institutions from every means of 

 personal and family expense, could possibly run in debt with- 

 out squandering their revenues in a manner incompatible with 

 their function. 



Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in their re- 

 venues by fires among their buildings, or large dilapidations from 

 storms, &c. ; 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 in- 

 truded 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 disadvantages 

 some convents used to complain, and especially those of Canter- 

 bury; but this Priory, from its sequestered situation, could 



1 Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notabilis Visitatio, that all their 

 relics, plate, vestments, title deeds, &c. were in pawn. 

 - Lowth's Life of Wykeham. 



