364 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



stated times, and wholly to abstain from frivolous conversa- 

 tion." 



ITEM 4th. " Not to permit such frequent passing of secular 

 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 dpors of their church and 

 Priory be so attended to that no suspected and disorderly females, 

 'suspecta? et alise inhonestae/ 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 kept shut until their first 

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

 they meet at their evening collation.* 



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 Saint 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 in- 

 specting 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 

 gome 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."f He enjoins that 

 these culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, especially 

 if they shall be found to be faulty a third time ; and threatens 



* A Collation was a meal or repast on a fast day in lieu of a supper. 



t The rule alluded to in ITEM 10th, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined the Knights Tem- 

 plars, who also were subject to the rules of Saint Augustine. See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum. 



