334 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XV. 



THOUGH Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid in 

 his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he 

 was on the whole a liberal friend and benefactor to that convent, 

 which, like every society or individual that fell in his way, partook 

 of the generosity and benevolence of that munificent prelate. 



" In the year 1377 William of Wykeham, out of his mere good 

 will and liberality, discharged the whole debts of the prior and 

 convent of Selborne, to the amount of one hundred and ten marks 

 eleven shillings and sixpence ; * and, a few years before he died, he 

 made a free gift of one hundred marks to the same priory : on 

 which account the prior and convent voluntarily engaged for the 

 celebration of two masses a day by two canons of the convent for 

 ten years, for the bishop's welfare, if he should live so long ; and 

 for his soul if he should die before the expiration of this term." f 



At this distance of time it seems matter of great wonder to us 

 how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose members were 

 exempt by their very institution from every means of personal and 

 family expense, could possibly run in debt without- squandering 

 their revenues in a manner incompatible with their function. 



Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in their revenues 

 by fires among their buildings, or large dilapidations from storms, 

 &c. ; but no such accident appears to have befallen the priory at 

 Selborne. Those situate on public roads, or in great towns where 

 there were shrines of saints, were liable to be intruded on by 

 travellers, devotees and pilgrims ; and were subject to the impor- 

 tunity of the poor, who swarmed at their gates to partake of doles 

 and broken victuals. Of these disadvantages some convents used 

 to complain, and especially those at Canterbury; but this priory, 

 from its sequestered situation, could seldom be subject to either of 

 these inconveniences, and therefore we must attribute its frequent 

 debts and embarrassments, well endowed as it was, to the bad 

 conduct of its members, and a general inattention to the interests 

 of the institution. 



* Yet in ten years time we find, by the " Notabilis Visitatio," that all their relics, plate, 

 vestments, title-deeds, &c., were in pawn, 

 t Lowth's Life of Wykeham. 



