OF SELBORNE, 
431 
and given to tlie 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 11th 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.^ 
* The rule alluded to in Item lOth, of not sleeping naked, was en- 
joined the Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of Sfc. 
Augustine. — See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum. — G. 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 Sel- 
borne should languish after hunting, when, from their situation so near 
the precincts of VVolmer Forest, the king's hounds most have been often 
