OF SELBORNE 333 



in quorum circumspectione et diligentia confidebat, prefecit: 

 quos tamen male se habuisse ac inutiliter administrare, et 

 administrasse, usque ad presentia tempora post debitam 

 investigationem, &c. invenit." So that he despaired with 

 all his care " statum ejusdem reparare vel restaurare : et 

 considerata temporis malicia, et preteritis timendo et con- 

 jecturando futura, de aliqua bona et sancta religione 

 ejusdem ordinis, &c. juxta piam intentionem primevi 

 fundatoris ibidem habend. desperatur." 



William Wain fleet, bishop of Winchester, founded his 

 college of Saint Mary Magdalene, in the University of 

 Oxford, in or about the year 1459 ; but the revenues 

 proving insufficient for so large and noble an establishment, 

 the college supplicated the founder to augment its income 

 by putting it in possession of the estates belonging to the 

 Priory of Selborne, now become a deserted convent, with- 

 out canons or prior. The president and fellows state the 

 circumstances of their numerous institution and scanty 

 provision, and the ruinous and perverted condition of the 

 Priory. The bishop appoints commissaries to inquire into 

 the state of the said monastery ; and, if found expedient, 

 to confirm the appropriation of it to the college, which 

 soon after appoints attornies to take possession, September 

 24, 1484. But the way to give the reader a thorough 

 insight respecting this transaction, will be to transcribe a 

 farther proportion of the process of the impropriation from 

 the beginning, which will lay open the manner of pro- 

 ceeding, and show the consent of the parties. 



IMPROPRIATIO SELBORNE, 1485. 



" Universis sancte matris ecclesie filiis, &c. Ricardus 

 Dei gratia prior ecclesie conventualis de Novo Loco, &C. 1 



1 Ecclesia Conventualis de Novo Loco was the monastery afterwards 

 called the New Minster, or Abbey of Hyde, in the city of Winchester. 

 Should any intelligent reader wonder to see that the prior of Hyde 

 Abbey was commissar)' to the bishop of Winton, and should conclude 

 that there was a mistake in titles, and that the abbot must have been 

 here meant ; he will be pleased to recollect that this person was the 



