ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 365 



the prior and sub-prior with suspension if they do not correct 

 this enormity. 



In ITEM llth the good bishop is very wroth with some of the 

 canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and sportsmen, 

 keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting matches. These 

 pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipation, danger to the soul 

 and body, and frequent expense ; he, therefore, wishing to extir- 

 pate this vice wholly from the convent, "radicibus extirpare," 

 does absolutely enjoin the canons never intentionally to be 

 present at any public noisy tumultuous huntings ; or to keep any 

 hounds, by themselves or by others, openly or by stealth, within 

 the convent or without.* 



In ITEM 12th he forbids the canons in office to make their 

 business a plea for not attending the service of the choir ; since 

 by these means either divine worship is neglected or their 

 brother canons are overburdened. 



By ITEM 14th we are informed that the original number of 

 canons at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen ; but that at this 

 visitation they were found to be let down to eleven. The visitor 

 therefore strongly and earnestly enjoins them that, with all due 

 speed and diligence, they should proceed to the election of 

 proper persons to fill up the vacancies, under pain of the greater 

 excommunication. 



In ITEM 17th the prior and canons are accused of suffering, 

 through neglect, notorious dilapidations to take place among 

 their manorial houses and tenements, and in the walls and en- 

 closures of the convent itself, to the shame and scandal of the 

 institution ; they are therefore enjoined, under pain of suspen- 

 sion, to repair all defects within the space of six months. 



ITEM 18th charges them with grievously burthening the said 

 Priory by means of sales, and grants of li veriest and corrodies. J 



* Considering the strong'propensity in human nature towards the pleasures of the chase, it U 

 not to he wondered that the canons of Selborue should languish after hunting, when, from their 

 situation so near the precincts of VVolmer-forest, the king's hounds must have been often in 

 hearing, and sometimes in sight from their windows. If the bishop was so offended at these 

 sporting canons, what would he have said to our modern fox-hunting divines ? 



t " Liberationes, or liberaturae, allowances of corn, &c. to servants delivered at certain times, 

 and in certain quantities, as clothes were among the allowances from religious houses to their 

 dependants. See the corrodies granted by Croyland Abbey. History of Croyland, Appendix, 

 No. XXXIV. 



" It is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be confined to the uniform of the 

 retainers or servants of the great, who were hence called livery servants. Sir John Cullum's 

 Hist, of Hawsted 



t A corrody is an allowance to a servant living in an abbey or priory 



