ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 233 



canons, living dissolutely after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep 

 naked in their beds without their breeches and shirts, " absque femo- 

 ralibus et camisiis." * He enjoins that these culprits shall be punished 

 by severe fasting, especially if they shall be found to be faulty a third 

 time ; and threatens the prior and sub-prior with suspension if they do 

 not correct this enormity. 



In Item llth the good bishop is very wroth with some of the canons, 

 whom he finds to be professed hunters and sportsmen, keeping hounds, 

 and publicly attending hunting-matches. These pursuits, he says, 

 occasion much dissipation, danger to the soul and body, and frequent 

 expense ; he, therefore, wishing to extirpate this vice wholly from the 

 convent, " radicibus extirpare," does absolutely enjoin the canons 

 never intentionally to be present at any public noisy tumultuous 

 huntings ; or to keep any hounds, by themselves or by others, openly 

 or by stealth, within the convent, or without, f 



In Item 12th he forbids the canons in office to make their business 

 a plea for not attending the service of the choir ; since by these means 

 either divine worship is neglected or their brother canons are over* 

 burdened. 



By Item 14th we are informed that the original number of canons 

 at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen ; but that at this visitation they 

 were found to be let down to eleven. The visitor therefore strongly 

 and earnestly enjoins them that, with all due speed and diligence, they 

 should proceed to the election of proper persons to fill up the vacancies, 

 under pain of the greater excommunication. 



In Item 17th the prior and canons are accused of suffering, through 

 neglect, notorious dilapidations to take pla-ce among their manerial 

 houses and tenements, and in the walls and inclosures of the convent 

 itself, to the shame and scandal of the institution ; they are therefore 

 enjoined, under pain of suspension, to repair all defects within the 

 space* of six months. 



Item 18th charges them with grievously burthening the said Priory 

 by means of sales, and grants of li veriest and corrodies. 



The bishop, in Item 19th, accuses the canons of neglect and omission 

 with respect to their perpetual chantry-services. 



Item 20th. The visitor here conjures the prior and canons not to 

 withhold their original alms, " eleemosynas ; " nor those that they were 



* The rule alluded to in item 10th, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined the 

 Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augustine. See 

 GURTLERI Hist. Templariorum. 



t Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the pleasures of 

 the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Canterbury should languish 

 after hunting, when from their situation so near the precincts of Woolmer Forest, 

 the king's hounds must have been often in hearing, and sometimes in sight 

 from their windows. If the bishop was so offended at these sporting canons, 

 what would he have said to our modern fox-hunting divines ? 



t " Liberationes, or liberatune, allowances of corn, &c., to servants, delivered 

 at certain times, and in certain quantities, as clothes were among the allowances 

 from religious houses to their dependants. See the corrodies granted by Croyland 

 Abbey. Hist, of Croyland, Appendix No. XXXIV. 



"It is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be confined to the 

 uniform of the retainers or servants of the great, who were hence called livery 

 servants." SIR JOHN CULLUM'S Hist, of Hawsted. 



A corrody is an allowance to a servant living in an abbey or priory. 



