372 
ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
In this instrument his holiness accuses the prior and canons 
of having granted away (they themselves and their predecessors) 
to certain clerks and laymen their tithes, lands, rents, tenements, 
and possessions, to some of them for their lives, to others for an 
undue term of years, and to some again for a perpetuity, to the 
great and heavy detriment of the monastery : and these leases 
were granted, he continues to add, under their own hands, with 
the sanction of an oath and the renunciation of all right and 
claims, and under penalties, if the right was not made good. — 
But it will be best to give an abstract from the bull. 
N. 298. Pope Martin's bull touching the revoking of certaine 
things alienated from the Priory of Seleburne, Pontif. sui ann. 1. 
" Martinus Eps. servus servorum Dei. Dilecto filio Priori de 
Suthvale* Wyntonien. dioc. Salutem & apostolicam ben. Ad 
audientiam nostram pervenit quam tam dilecti filii prior et con- 
ventus monasterii de Seleburn per Priorem soliti gubernari 
ordinis Augustini Winton. dioc. quam de predecessores 
eorum decimas, terras, redditus, domos, possessiones, vineas,t 
et quedam alia bona ad monasterium ipsum spectantia, datis 
super hoc litteris, interpositis juramentis, factis renuntiationibus, 
et penis adjectis, in gravem ip«ius monasterii lesionem nonnuUis 
clericis et laicis, aliquibus eorum ad vitam, quibusdam vero ad 
non modicum tempus, & aliis perpetuo ad firmam, vel sub censu 
aimuo concesserunt ; quorum aliqui dicunt super hiis a sede 
aplica in communi forma confimationis litteras impetrasse. Quia 
vero nostra interest lesis monasteriis subvenire — [He the Pope 
here commands] — ea ad jus et proprietatem monasterii studeas 
legitime revocare,'' &c. 
The conduct of the religious had now for some time been 
generally bad. Many of the monastic societies, being very opu- 
lent, were become voluptuous and licentious, and had deviated 
entirely from their original institutions. The laity saw with in- 
dignation the wealth and possessions of their pious ancestors 
perverted to the service of sensuality and indulgence ; and spent 
in gratifications highly unbecoming the purposes for which they 
were given. A total disregard to their respective rules and dis- 
* Should have been no doubt Southwick, a priory under Portsdown. 
t Mr. Barrington is of opinion that ancientlj-^ the English vinea was in almost every instance 
an orchard ; not perhaps always of apples merely, but of other fruits ; as cherries, plums, and 
currants. We still say a plum or cherry-orchard. See vol. lll.'of Archseologia. 
In the instance above the pope's secretary might insert vineas merely because they were a 
species of cultivation familiar to him in Italy. 
