ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 333 



Item 32nd. The bishop says in this item that he had observed 

 and found, in his several visitations, that the sacramental plate and 

 cloths of the altar, surplices, &c., were sometimes left in such an 

 uncleanly and disgusting condition as to make the beholders 

 shudder with horror " Quod aliquibus sunt horrori : " * he there- 

 fore enjoins them for the future to see that the plate, cloths, and 

 vestments, be kept bright, clean, and in decent order : and, what 

 must surprise the reader, adds that he expects for the future that 

 the sacrist should provide for the sacrament good wine, pure and 

 unadulterated ; and not, as had often been the practice, that which 

 was sour, and tending to decay : he says farther, that it seems 

 quite preposterous to omit in sacred matters that attention to 

 decent cleanliness, the neglect of which would disgrace a common 

 convivial meeting. ~f 



Item 33rd says that though the relics of saints, the plate, holy 

 vestments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by canon- 

 ical institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn ; yet, as the 

 visitor finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he there- 

 fore strictly enjoins the prior forthwith to recall those pledges, and 

 to restore them to the convent ; and orders that all the papers and 

 title-deeds thereto belonging should be safely deposited, and kept 

 under three locks and keys. 



In the course of the "Visitatio Notabilis," the constitutions of 

 Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was after- 

 wards Pope Adrian V., and died in 1276. His constitutions are in 

 " Lyndewood' s Provinciate/' and were drawn up in the 52nd 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. 



* " Men abhorred the offering of the Lord." i"Sam. ii. 17. Strange as this account 

 may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when first in orders, twice met with similar 

 circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches belonging to two obscure villages. 

 In the first he found the inside of the chalice c yvered with birds' dung; and in the other the 

 communion-cloth soiled with cabbage and the greasy drippings of a gammon of bacon. 

 The good dame at the great farm-house, who was to furnish the cloth, being a notable 

 woman, thought it best to save her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered 

 her own table f jr two or three Sundays before. 



f " ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 



Corruget nares : ne n~ji\ et cantharus, et lanx 

 Ostendat tibi te." 



