ANTIQUITIES OF SELBOUNE. 
235 
found, in his several visitations, that the sacramental plate and cloths 
of the altar, surplices, &c., were sometimes left in such an uncleanly 
and disgusting condition as to make the beholders shudder with 
horror: — " Quod aliquibus sunt horrori:"* he therefore enjoins them 
for the future to see that the plate, cloths, and vestments, be kept 
bright, clean, and in decent order : and, what must surprise the reader, 
adds — that he expects for the future that the sacrist should provide for 
the sacrament good wine, pure and unadulterated; and not, as had 
often been the practice, that which was sour, and tending to decay : — 
he says farther, that it seems quite preposterous to omit in sacred 
matters that attention to decent cleanliness, the neglect of which 
would disgrace a common convivial meeting.f 
Item 33rd says that, though the relics of saints, the plate, holy vest- 
ments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by canonical 
institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn ; yet, as the visitor 
finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he therefore strictly 
enjoins the prior forthwith to recal those pledges, and to restore them 
to the convent ; and orders that all the papers and title-deeds thereto 
belonging should be safely deposited, and kept under three locks 
and keys. 
In the course of the " Yisitatio IN'otabilis" the constitutions of Legate 
Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was afterwards Pope 
Adrian Y., and died in 1276. His constitutions are in " Lyndewood's 
Provinciale," and were drawn up in the 52nd of Henry III. 
In the " Yisitatio Notabilis" 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 punishment is to be inflicted. 
LETTEE XV. 
Though 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 William of Wykeham, out of his mere good will 
* "Men abhorred the offering of the Lord." — 1 Sam. ii. 17. Strange as this 
account may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when first in orders, twice 
met with similar circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches belonging 
to two obscure villages. In the first he found the inside of the chalice covered 
with birds' dung ; and in the other the communion-cloth soiled with cabbage 
and the greasy drippings of a gammon of bacon. The good dame at the great 
farm-house, who was to furnish the cloth, being a notable woman, thought it 
best to save her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered her own 
table for two or three Sundays before. 
t / " ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 
Corruget nares : ne non et cantharus, et lanx 
Ostendat tibi te." 
