OF SELBORNE. 573 



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 doors, of their 

 church and Priory be so attended to that no suspected 

 and disorderly females, ' suspectae et aliae 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 4 . 



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 7th. The decretals concerning their order are 

 not read, on which account they, in consequence of 

 their ignorance of them, to the peril of their souls act in 

 a manner therein expressly forbidden. Wherefore they 

 are required to have these decretals written in a volume, 

 and read twice a year in the chapter for the information 

 of the seniors ; and to have them explained, in the vul- 

 gar, to the novices, so that they may know them as it 

 were by heart. This charge is laid upon the prior, under 

 pain of suspension.] 



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, according to the 

 rule of St. Augustine. 



In Item 9th is a complaint that some of the canons 



4 A collation was a meal or repast on a fast day in lieu of a supper. 



