ANTiaUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
365 
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 pubhcly attending hunting matches. These 
pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipation, danger to the soul 
and body, and frequent expense ; he, therefore, wishing to extir- 
pate 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.* 
In Item 12th he forbids the canons in office to make their 
business a plea for not attending the service of the choir ; since 
by these means either divine worship is neglected or their 
brother canons are overburdened. 
By Item 14th we are informed that the original number of 
canons at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen ; but that at this 
visitation they were found to be let down to eleven. The visitor 
therefore strongly and earnestly enjoins them that, with all due 
speed and diligence, they should proceed to the election of 
proper persons to fill up the vacancies, under pain of the greater 
excommunication. 
In Item l7th the prior and canons are accused of suffering, 
through neglect, notorious dilapidations to take place among 
their manorial houses and tenements, and in the walls and en- 
closures of the convent itself, to the shame and scandal of the 
institution ; they are therefore enjoined, under pain of suspen- 
sion, to repair all defects within the space of six months. 
Item 18th charges them with grievously burthening the said 
Priory by means of sales, and grants of liveriesf and corrodies.J 
* Considering the sirong'propensity in human nature towards the pleasures of the chase, it is 
not to be wondered that the canons of Sell)orne should languish after hunting, when, from their 
situation so near the precincts of Wolmer-forest, the king's hounds must have been often in 
hearing, and sometimes in sight from their windows. — If the bishop was so ottiended at these 
sporting canons, what would he have said to our modern fox-hunting divines ? 
t '* Liberationes, or liberaturae, allowances of corn, &c to servants delivered at certain times, 
and in certain quantities, as clothes were among the allowances from religious houses to their 
dependants. — See the corrodies granted by Croyland Abbey. — History of Croyland, Appendix, 
No. XXXIV, 
'* It is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be confined to the uniform of the 
retainers or servants of the great, who were hence called livery servants. — Sir John Culiitm's 
Hist, of Hawsted 
t A corrody is an allowance to a servant living in an abbey or priory 
