ANTIQUITIES OP SELBORNE. 217 



priories, suppressed 2 Henry V., viz., 1414, 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 con- 

 ventual ones excepted, were little better than granges to foreign abbeys, 

 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, Bassinges, Basingstoke, and 

 Natele; and the prior challenged the right of pillory, thurcet, and 

 furcas, and every manorial privilege. 



I find next a grant from Jo. de Yenur, or Yenuz, 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 

 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 gloves 

 of one penny value to the prior and canons, to be given annually by 

 the said Pdchard ; 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, exac- 

 tionibus, 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 there- 

 fore 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 foundation. The religious were not back- 

 ward in keeping up this pious propensity, which they observed so 

 readily influenced the breasts of men. Thus did the more opulent 

 monasteries add house to house, and field to field, and by degrees 

 manor to manor, till at last "there was no place left;" but every 

 district around became appropriated to the purposes of their founders, 

 and every precinct was drawn into the vortex. 



