512 
THE ANTIQUITIES 
[LETT. 
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 11th the good bishop is very wroth with some of 
the canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and sports- 
men, keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting matches. 
Tliese 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 extir- 
jmre,'' 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.^ 
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 overburdened. 
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 place among 
their manorial liouses and tenements, and in the w^alls 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. 
^ Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the pleasures 
of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Selborne should 
languish after hunting, when, from their situation so near the precincts of 
Wolmer Forest, the king's hounds must have often been 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 ? 
