THE ANTIQUITIES 
LETT. 
LETTER XV. 
Though Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid in 
his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he 
w^as 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 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 en- 
gaged 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 expira- 
tion of this term," ^ 
At this distance of time it seems matter of great wonder to us 
how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose members 
were exempt by their very institutions from every means of 
personal and family expense, could j^ossibly run in debt with- 
out squandering their revenues in a manner incompatible with 
their function. 
Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in their re- 
venues by fires among their buildings, or large dilapidations from 
storms, &c. ; but no such accident appears to have befallen the 
Priory of Selborne. Those situate on public roads, or in great 
towns, where there were shrines of saints, were liable to be in- 
truded on by travellers, devotees, and pilgrims ; and were subject 
to the importunity of the poor, who swarmed at their gates to 
partake of doles and broken victuals. Of these disadvantages 
some convents used to complain, and especially those of Canter- 
bury ; but this Priory, from its sequestered situation, could 
^ Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notafcilis Visitatio, that all their 
rehes, plate, vestments, title deeds, &c. were in pawn. 
^ Lowth's Life of Wykeham. 
