372 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



In this instrument his holiness accuses the prior and canons 

 of having granted away (they themselves and their predecessors) 

 to certain clerks and laymen their tithes, lands, rents, tenements, 

 and possessions, to some of them for their lives, to others for an 

 undue term of years, and to some again for a perpetuity, to the 

 great and heavy detriment of the monastery : and these leases 

 were granted, he continues to add, under their own hands, with 

 the sanction of an oath and the renunciation of all right and 

 claims, and under penalties, if the right was not made good. 

 But it will be best to give an abstract from the bull. 



N. 298. Pope Martin's bull touching the revoking of certaine 

 things alienated from the Priory of Seleburne, Pontif. sui ann. 1. 



" Martinus Eps. servus servorum Dei. Dilecto filio Priori de 

 Suthvale* Wyntonien. dioc. Salutem & apostolicam ben. Ad 

 audientiam nostram pervenit quam tarn dilecti filii prior et con- 

 ventus monasterii de Seleburn per Priorern soliti gubernari 

 ordinis S tj . Augustini Winton. dioc. quam de predecessores 

 eorum decimas, terras, redditus, domos, possessiones, vineas,f 

 et quedam alia bona ad monasterium ipsum spectantia, datis 

 super hoc litteris, interpositis juramentis, factis renuntiationibus, 

 et penis adjectis, in gravem ipsius monasterii lesionem nonnullis 

 clericis et laicis, aliquibus eorum ad vitam, quibusdam vero ad 

 non modicum tempus, & aliis perpetuo ad firmam, vel sub censu 

 annuo concesserunt ; quorum aliqui dicunt super hiis a sede 

 aplica in communi forma confimationis litteras impetrasse. Quia 

 vero nostra interest lesis monasteriis subvenire [He the Pope 

 here commands] ea ad jus et proprietatem monasterii studeas 

 legitime revocare," &c. 



The conduct of the religious had now for some time been 

 generally bad. Many of the monastic societies, being very opu- 

 lent, were become voluptuous and licentious, and had deviated 

 entirely from their original institutions. The laity saw with in- 

 dignation the wealth and possessions of their pious ancestors 

 perverted to the service of sensuality and indulgence ; and spent 

 in gratifications highly unbecoming the purposes for which they 

 were given. A total disregard to their respective rules and dis- 



* Should have been no doubt Southwick, a priory under Portsdown. 



t Mr. Harrington is of opinion that anciently the English vinea was in almost every instance 

 an orchard ; not perhaps always of apples merely, but of other fruits ; as cherries, plums, and 

 currants. We still say a plum or cherry-orchard. See vol. 111. "of Archseologia. 



In the instance above the pope's secretary might insert vineas merely because they were a 

 species of cultivation familiar to him in Italy. 



