498 ANTIQUITIES 



the articles " fuisse & ease vera;" and the commissary, at 

 the request of Preston, concluded the business, and appointed 

 Monday, August 8th, for giving his decree in the same 

 church of Essher; and it was that day read, and contains 

 a recapitulation, with the sentence of union, &c., witnessed 

 and attested. 



As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalen Col- 

 lege had obtained the decision of the commissary in their 

 favour, they proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to entreat 

 his holiness that he would give his sanction to the sentence 

 of union. Some difficulties were started at Rome ; but 

 they were surmounted by the college agent, as appears by 

 his letters from that city. At length Pope Innocent VIII. 

 by a bull 1 bearing date the 8th day of June, in the year of 

 our Lord 1486, and in the second year of his pontificate, 

 confirmed what had been done, and suppressed the convent. 



Thu& fell the considerable and well-endowed Priory of 

 Selborne, after it had subsisted about two hundred and 

 fifty- four years ; about seventy- four years after the suppres- 

 sion of Priories alien by Henry V., and about fifty years 

 before the general dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII. 

 The founder, it is probable, had fondly imagined that the 

 sacredness of the institution, and the pious motives on 

 which it was established, might have preserved it inviolate 

 to the end of time yet it fell, 



" To teach us that God attributes to place 



No sanctity, if none be thither brought 



By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell." 



MILTON'S " Paradise Lost." 



1 There is nothing remarkable in this bull of Pope Innocent except 

 the statement of the annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is 

 therein estimated at ISQflor. auri; whereas Bishop Godwin sets it at 

 337 15s. Q^d. Now a floren, so named, says Camden, because made 

 by Florentines, was a gold coin of King Edward III. in value 6s., 

 whereof 160 is not one-seventh part of 337 15s. Gd. G. W. 



