OF SELBORNE. 431 



and given to the poor, according to the rule of St. Au- 

 gustine. 



In Item 9th is a complaint that some of the canons are 

 given to wander out of the precincts of the convent without 

 leave ; and that others ride to their manors and farms, 

 under pretence of inspecting the concerns of the society, 

 when they please, and stay as long as they please. But 

 they are enjoined never to stir either about their own 

 private concerns or the business of the convent without 

 leave from the prior ; and no canon is to go alone, but to 

 have a grave brother to accompany him. 



The injunction in Item 10th, at this distance of time, 

 appears rather ludicrous ; but the visitor seems to be very 

 serious on the occasion, and says that it has been evidently 

 proved to him that some of the canons, living dissolutely 

 after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep naked in their 

 beds without their breeches and shirts, " absque femoralibus 

 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.' 2 



1 The rule alluded to in Item 10th, of not sleeping naked, was en- 

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

 Augustine. See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum. Gr. W. 



2 Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the 

 pleasures of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Scl- 

 borne should languish after hunting, when, from their situation so near 

 the precincts of Wolrner Forest, the king's hounds mast have been often 



