282 THE ANTIQUITIES 



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. 1 



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

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

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

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

 therefore 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 afterwards 

 Pope AdrianV. and died in 1276. His constitutions are in Lynde- 

 wood's Provinciate, and were drawn up in the 52d 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 Jeria, are 

 mentioned often, and are to be understood of the days of the 

 week numerically on which such punishment is to be inflicted. 



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 other society or individual that fell in his way, 

 partook of the generosity and benevolence of that munificent 

 prelate. 



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 for two or three Sundays before. 



111 ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 



" Corruget nares ; ne non et cantharus, et lanx 

 " Ostendat tibi te " 



