236 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



The charter of foundation of the Priory, dated 1233, 

 comes next in order to be considered ; but being of some 

 length, I shall not interrupt my narrative by placing it 

 here. This my copy, taken from the original, I have com- 

 pared with Dugdale's copy, and find that they perfectly 

 agree ; except that in the latter the preamble and the names 

 of the witnesses are omitted. Yet I think it proper to quote 

 a passage from this charter : " Et ipsa domus religiosa a 

 cujuslibet alterius domds religiose subjectione libera permaneat, 

 et in omnibus absoluta" to show how much Dugdale was 

 mistaken when he inserted Selborne among the alien 

 priories ; forgetting that this disposition of the convent 

 contradicted the grant that he had published. In the 

 " Monasticon Anglicanum" in English, p. 119, is part of 

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

 viz., 1414, where may be seen as follows : 



S. 

 Sele, Sussex, 



SELEBURN. 



Shirbum. 



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 removeable 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. Syden- 

 meade cum abutt : et de cursu aque molendini." And also 

 a grant in reversion " unius virgate terre," (a yard land) in 

 Achangre at the death of Richard Actedene his sister's 

 husband, who had no child. He was to present a pair of 



