ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
231 
LETTEE XIV. 
*^^In the year 1373 Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, held a visitation 
of his whole diocese ; not only of the secular clergy through the several 
deaneries, but also of the monasteries, and religious houses of all sorts, 
which he visited in person. The next year he sent his commissioners 
with power to correct and reform the several irregularities and abuses 
which he had discovered in the course of his visitation. 
" Some years afterward, the bishop having visited three several times 
all the religious houses throughout his diocese, and being well informed 
of the state and condition of each, and of the particular abuses which 
required correction and reformation, besides the orders which he had 
already given, and the remedies which he had occasionally applied by 
his commissioners, now issued his injunctions to each of them. They 
were accommodated to their several exigencies, and intended to correct 
the abuses introduced, and to recall them all to a strict observation of 
the rules of their respective orders. Many of these injunctions are still 
extant, and are evident monuments of the care and attention with 
which he discharged this part of his episcopal duty." * 
Some of these injunctions I shall here produce ; and they are such as 
will not fail, I think, to give satisfaction to the antiquary, both as never 
having been published before, and as they are a curious picture of 
monastic irregularities at that time. 
The documents that I allude to are contained in the Notabilis 
Yisitatio de Seleburne," held at the priory of that place, by Wykeham 
in person, in the year 1387. 
This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins of parchment 
the one large, and the other smaller, and consists of a preamble, thirty- 
six items, and a conclusion, which altogether evince the patient 
investigation of the visitor, for which he had always been so remarkable 
in all matters of moment, and how much he had at heart the regularity 
of those institutions, of whose efficacy in their prayers for the dead he 
was so firmly persuaded. As the bishop was so much in earnest, we 
may be assured that he had nothing in view but to correct and reform 
what he found amiss ; and was under no bias to blacken, or misrepresent 
as the commissioners of Thomas Lord Cromwell seem in part to have 
done at the time of the reformation.f We may therefore with reason 
suppose that the bishop gives us an exact delineation of the morals and 
manners of the canons of Selborne at that juncture ; and that what he 
found they had omitted he enjoins them ; and for what they have done 
amiss, and contrary to their rules and statutes, he reproves them ; and 
threatens them with punishment suitable to their irregularities. 
The visitatio is of considerable length, and cannot be introduced into 
the body of this work; we shall therefore refer the reader to the 
Appendix, where he will find every particular, while we shall take 
* See Lowth's Life of Wykeha m. 
t Letters of this sort from Dr. Layton to Thomas Lord Cromwell are still 
extant. 
