468 
ANTIQUITIES 
constitutions are in Lyndewood^s Provinciale, and -were 
drawn up in the 52i]d of Henry III. 
In the Yisitatio N otabilis 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 punish- 
ment is to be inflicted. 
LETTER XV. 
HOUGH 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 society or 
individual that fell in his way, partook of the generosity 
and benevolence of that munificent prelate. 
In the year 1377, Yv'^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 hun- 
dred 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.^ 
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 institution from every 
means of personal and family expense, could possibly run 
in debt without squandering their revenues in a manner 
incompatible with their function. 
^ Yet in ten years' time we find, by the Xotabilis Yisitatio, that all 
their relics, plate, vestments, title deeds, &c., were in pawn. — G. W. 
' Lowth's " Life of Wykeham."— G. W. 
