262 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



communication, to see that the canonical hours by night 

 and by day be sung in their choir, and the masses of the 

 Blessed Mary, and other accustomed masses, be celebrated 

 at the proper hours with devotion, and at moderate pauses ; 

 and that it be not allowed to any to absent themselves 

 from the hours and masses, or to withdraw before they 

 are finished." 



Item 2d. He enjoins them to observe that silence to 

 which they are so strictly bound by the rule of Saint 

 Augustine at stated times, and wholly to abstain from 

 frivolous conversation. 



Item 4th. "Not to permit such frequent passing of 

 secular people of both sexes through their convent, as if a 

 thoroughfare, from whence many disorders may and have 

 arisen." 



Item 5th. "To take care that the doors of their church 

 and Priory be so attended to that no suspected and dis- 

 orderly females, ' suspectae et aliae inhonestae/ pass through 

 their choir and cloister in the dark ; " and to see that the 

 doors of their church between the nave and the choir, and 

 the gates of their cloister opening into the fields, be con- 

 stantly kept shut until their first choir-service is over in the 

 morning, at dinner time, and when they meet at their 

 evening collation. 1 



Item 6th mentions that several of the canons are found 

 to be very ignorant and illiterate, and enjoins the prior to 

 see that they be better instructed by a proper master. 



Item 8th. The canons are here accused of refusing to 

 accept of their statutable clothing year by year, and of 

 demanding a certain specified sum of money, as if it were 

 their annual rent and due. This the bishop forbids, and 

 orders that the canons shall be clothed out of the revenue 

 of the Priory, and the old garments be laid by in a 

 chamber and given to the poor according to the rule of 

 Saint Augustine. 



In Item Qth is a complaint that some of the canons are 

 given to wander out of the precincts of the convent without 



1 A collation was a meal or repast on a fast-day in lieu of a supper. 



