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 ; 1 

 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 cele- 

 bration 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 expira- 

 tion of this term." 2 



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 dilapida- 

 tions from storms, &c. ; but no such accident appears to 



1 Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notabilis Visitatio^ that all their relics, 

 plate, vestments, title-deeds, &c., were in pawn. [G. W.] 



2 LvwtfCs Life of Wykeham. [G. W.] 



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