574 ANTIQUITI 



arc given to wander out of the precincts of the convent 

 without leave; and that others ride to their manors and 

 farms, under pretence of inspecting the concerns of the 

 society, when they please, and stay as long as they 

 please. But they are enjoined never to stir either 

 about their own private concerns or the business of the 

 convent without leave from the prior : and no canon is 

 to go alone, but to have a grave brother to accompany 

 him. 



The injunction in Item 10th, at this distance of time, 

 appears rather ludicrous; but the visiter seems to be 

 very serious on the occasion, and says that it has been 

 evidently proved to him that some of the canons, living 

 dissolutely after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep 

 naked in their beds without their breeches and shirts, 

 "absque femoralibus et camisiis 5 ." He enjoins that 

 these culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, espe- 

 cially if they shall be found to be faulty a third time ; 

 and threatens 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 extirpate 

 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 . 



5 The rule alluded to in Item 10th, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined 

 the Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augus- 

 tine. See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum. 



6 Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the 

 pleasures of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Sel- 

 borne should languish after hunting, when, from their situation so near 

 the precincts of Wolmer Forest, the king's hounds must have been often 



