ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 393 



proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to entreat his holiness that 

 he would give his sanction to the sentence of union. Some dif- 

 ficulties were started at Rome ; but they were surmounted by the 

 college agent, as appears by his letters from that city. At length 

 pope Innocent VIII. by a bull* bearing date the 8th day of June, 

 in the year of our Lord 1468, and in the second year of his 

 pontificate, confirmed what had been done, and suppressed the 

 convent. 



Thus fell the considerable and well-endowed Priory of Sel- 

 borne after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty-four 

 years : about seventy-four years after the suppression of Priories 

 alien by Henry V. and about fifty years before the general disso- 

 lution of monasteries by Henry VIII. The founder, it is pro- 

 bable, had fondly imagined that the sacredness of the institution, 

 and the pious motives on which it was established, might have 

 preserved it inviolate to the end of time yet it fell, 



" To teach us that God attributes to place 

 No sanctity, if none be thither brought 

 By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell." 



MILTON'S Paradise Lost. 



LETTER XXV. 



WAINFLEET did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising from 

 this new acquisition ; but departed this life in a few months after 

 he had effected the union of the Priory with his late founded 

 college ; and was succeeded in the see of Winchester by Peter 

 Courtney, some time towards the end of the year 1486. 



In the beginning of the following year the new bishop released 

 the president and fellows of Magdalen College from all actions 

 respecting the Priory of Selborne ; and the prior and convent of 

 Saint Swithun, as the chapter of Winchester cathedral, confirmed 

 the release.f 



N. 293. " Relaxatio Petri epi Winton Ricardo Mayew, Presi- 

 denti omnium actionum occasione indempnitatis sibi debite pro 



* There is nothing remarkable in this bull of pope Innocent except the statement of the animal 

 revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is therein estimated at 160 flor. auri ; whereas bishop 

 Godwin sets it at 337/. 15j. 6\d. Now a floren, so named, says Camden, because made by Flo- 

 rentines, was a gold coin of king Edward III. in value 6 S . whereof 160 is not one seventh part ol 

 3371- 15*. &\d. 



f The bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Priory. 



