ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 231 



LETTEE XIY. 



"!N the year 1378 Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, held a visitation 

 of his whole diocese ; not only of the secular clergy through the several 

 deaneries, but also of the monasteries, and religious houses of all sorts, 

 which he visited in person. The next year he sent his commissioners 

 with power to correct and reform the several irregularities and abuses 

 which he had discovered in the course of his visitation. 



" Some years afterward, the bishop having visited three several times 

 all the religious houses throughout his diocese, and being well informed 

 of the state and condition of each, and of the particular abuses which 

 required correction and reformation, besides the orders which he had 

 already given, and the remedies which he had occasionally applied by 

 his commissioners, now issued his injunctions to each of them. They 

 were accommodated to their several exigencies, and intended to correct 

 the abuses introduced, and to recall them all to a strict observation of 

 the rules of their respective orders. Many of these injunctions are still 

 extant, and are evident monuments of the care and attention with 

 which he discharged this part of his episcopal duty." * 



Some of these injunctions I shall here produce ; and they are such as 

 will not fail, I think, to give satisfaction to the antiquary, both as never 

 having been published before, and as they are a curious picture of 

 monastic irregularities at that time. 



The documents that I allude to are contained in the " ISTotabilis 

 Visitatio de Seleburne," held at the priory of that place, by Wykeham 

 in person, in the year 1387. 



This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins of parchment ; 

 the one large, and the other smaller, and consists of a preamble, thirty- 

 six items, and a conclusion, which altogether evince the patient 

 investigation of the visitor, for which he had always been so remarkable 

 in all matters of moment, and how much he had at heart the regularity 

 of those institutions, of whose efficacy in their prayers for the dead he 

 was so firmly persuaded. As the bishop was so much in earnest, we 

 may be assured that he had nothing in view but to correct and reform 

 what he found amiss ; and was under no bias to blacken, or misrepresent 

 as the commissioners of Thomas Lord Cromwell seem in part to have 

 done at the time of the reformation.f We may therefore with reason 

 suppose that the bishop gives us an exact delineation of the morals and 

 manners of the canons of Selborne at that juncture ; and that what he 

 found they had omitted he enjoins them; and for what they have done 

 amiss, and contrary to their rules and statutes, he reproves them ; and 

 threatens them with punishment suitable to their irregularities. 



The visitatio is of considerable length, and cannot be introduced into 

 the body of this work; we shall therefore refer the reader to the 

 Appendix, where he will find every particular, while we shall take 



* See Lowth's Life of Wykeha m. 



t Letters of this sort from Dr. Layton to Thomas Lord Cromwell are still 

 extant. 



