368 ANTiaUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



In the course of the Visitatio Notabilis the constitutions of 

 Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was 

 afterwards Pope Adrian V. and died in 1276. His constitutions 

 are in Lyndewood's Provinciale, and were drawn up in the 52d 

 of Henry III. 



In the Visitatio Notabilis the usual punishment is fasting on 

 bread and beer ; and in cases of repeated delinquency on bread 

 and water. On these occasions quarta feria, et sexta feria, are 

 mentioned often, and are to be understood of the days of the 

 week numerically on which such punishment is to be inflicted. 



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, par- 

 took 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 ;* 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."f 



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 institution from every means of personal 

 and family expense, could possibly run in debt without squan- 

 dering 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 at Selborne. Tnose situate on public roads, or in great 



* Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notabilis Visitatio, that all their relics, plate, ve&t- 

 m nts, title-deeds, &tc. were in pawn. 

 t Lowth's Life of Wykeham. 



