3IO THE ANTIQUITIES 



title deeds thereto belonging should be safely deposited, 

 and kept under three locks and keys. 



In the course of the Visitatio Notabilis the constitutions 

 of Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Otto- 

 bonus was afterwards Pope Adrian V. and died in 1276. 

 His constitutions are in Lyndewood's Provinciale, and were 

 drawn up in the 5 2d of Henry III. 



In the Visitatio 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. 



LETTER 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 other society 

 or individual that fell in his way, partook of the generosity 

 and benevolence of that munificent prelate. 



"In the year 1377 W^illiam of Wykeham, out of his 

 mere good will and liberality, discharged the whole debts 

 of the prior and convent of Selborne, to the amount of 

 one hundred and ten marks eleven shillings and sixpence ; ^ 

 and, a few years before he died, he made a free gift of one 

 hundred marks to the same Priory : on which account the 

 Prior and convent voluntarily engaged for the celebration 

 of two masses a day by two canons of the convent for ten 

 years, for the bishop's welfare, if he should live so long ; 

 and for his soul if he should die before the expiration of 

 this term."^ 



1 Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notabilis Visitatio, that all their 

 relics, plate, vestments, title-deeds, etc. were in pawn. 

 * Lowth's Life of Wykeham. 



