260 THE ANTIQUITIES 



that this disposition of the convent contradicted the grant he had 

 published. In the Monasticon Anglicanum in English, p. 119, is 

 part of his catalogue of alien priories, suppressed 2 Henry V. viz. 

 14-14, where may be seen as follows, 



S. 

 Sele, Sussex. 



SELEBURN. 



Shirburn. 



This appeared to me from the first to have been an oversight, 

 before I had seen my authentic evidences. For priories alien, a 

 few conventual ones excepted, were little better than granges to 

 foreign abbies ; and their priors little more than bailiffs, remov- 

 able at will : whereas the priory of Selborne possessed the valuable 

 estates and manors of Selborne, Achangre, Norton, Brompden, Bas- 

 singes, Basingstoke, and Natele ; and the prior challenged the right 

 of Pillory, Thurcet, and Furcas, and every manerial privilege. 



I find next a grant from Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, to the prior of 

 Selborne " de tota mora [a moor or bog] ubi Berne oritur, usque 

 " ad campum vivarii, et de prato voc. Sydenmeade cum abutt : et 

 " de cursu aque molendini ". And also a grant in reversion " unius 

 " virgate terra " [a yard land], in Achangre at the death of Richard 

 Actedene his sister's husband, who had no child. He was to pre- 

 sent a pair of gloves of one penny value to the prior and canons, 

 to be given annually by the said Richard ; and to quit all claim to 

 the said lands in reversion, provided the prior and canons would 

 engage annually to pay to the king, through the hands of his 

 bailiffs of Aulton, ten shillings at four quarterly payments, "pro 

 " omnibus serviciis, consuetudinibus, exactionibus, et demandis ". 



This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger, and lived 

 probably at the spot now called Chapel-farm. The grant bears 

 date the 17th year of the reign of Henry III. [viz. 1233]. 



It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for lands or 

 tenements that might be produced from my vouchers. I shall 

 therefore pass over all such for the present, and conclude this 

 letter with a remark that must strike every thinking person with 

 some degree of wonder. No sooner had a monastic institution 

 got a footing, but the neighbourhood began to be touched with a 

 secret and religious awe. Every person round was desirous to 

 promote so good a work ; and either by sale, by grant, or by gift 

 in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a benefactor. They who 

 had not lands to spare gave roads to accommodate the infant 



