ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 235 



found, in his several visitations, that the sacramental plate and cloths 

 of the altar, surplices, &c., were sometimes left in such an uncleanly 

 and disgusting condition as to make the beholders shudder with 

 horror : " Quod aliquibus sunt horrori : " * he therefore enjoins them 

 for the future to see that the plate, cloths, and vestments, be kept 

 bright, clean, and in decent order : and, what must surprise the reader, 

 adds that he expects for the future that the sacrist should provide for 

 the sacrament good wine, pure and unadulterated; and not, as had 

 often been the practice, that which was sour, and tending to decay : 

 he says farther, that it seems quite preposterous to omit in sacred 

 matters that attention to decent cleanliness, the neglect of which 

 would disgrace a common convivial meeting, f 



Item 33rd says that, though the relics of saints, the plate, holy vest- 

 ments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by canonical 

 institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn ; yet, as the visitor 

 finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he therefore strictly 

 enjoins the prior forthwith to recal those pledges, and to restore them 

 to the convent ; and orders that all the papers and title-deeds thereto 

 belonging should be safely deposited, and kept under three locks 

 and keys. 



In the course of the " Yisitatio Notabilis" the constitutions of Legate 

 Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was afterwards Pope 

 Adrian V., and died in 1276. His constitutions are in " Lyndewood's 

 Provinciale," and were drawn up in the 52nd of Henry III. 



In the " Yisitatio Notabilis" the usual punishment is fasting on 

 bread and beer ; and in cases of repeated delinquency on bread and 

 water. On these occasions quarta feria, et sexta feria, are mentioned 

 often, and are to be understood of the days of the week numerically on 

 which such punishment is to be inflicted. 



LETTEE 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 



* "Men abhorred the offering of the Lord." 1 Sam. ii. 17. Strange as this 

 accoimt may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when first in orders, twice 

 met with similar circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches belonging 

 to two obscure villages. In the first he found the inside of the chalice covered 

 with birds' dung; and in the other the communion-cloth soiled with cabbage 

 and the greasy drippings of a gammon of bacon. The good dame at the great 

 farm-house, who was to furnish the cloth, being a notable woman, thought it 

 best to save her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered her own, 

 table for two or three Sundays before. 



f " ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 



Corruget nares : ne non et cantharus, et laiix 

 Ostendat tibi te." 



