ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
393 
proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to entreat his holiness that 
he would give his sanction to the sentence of union. Some dif- 
ficulties were started at Rome ; but they were surmounted by the 
college agent, as appears by his letters from that city. At length 
pope Innocent VIII. by a bull* bearing date the 8th day of June, 
in the year of our Lord 1468, and in the second year of his 
pontificate, confirmed what had been done, and suppressed the 
convent. 
Thus fell the considerable and well-endowed Priory of Sel- 
borne after it had subsisted about two hundred and fift3'^-four 
years : about seventy-four years after the suppression of Priories 
alien by Henry V. and about fifty years before the general disso- 
lution of monasteries by Henry YIII. The founder, it is pro- 
bable, had fondly imagined that the sacredness of the institution, 
and the pious motives on which it was established, might have 
preserved it inviolate to the end of time — yet it fell. 
To teach us that God attributes to place 
No sanctity, if none be thither brought 
By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell." 
Milton's Paradise Lost. 
LETTER XXV. 
Wain FLEET did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising from 
this new acquisition ; but departed this life in a few months after 
he had eflfected the union of the Priory with his late founded 
college ; and was succeeded in the see of Winchester by Peter 
Courtney, some time towards the end of the year 1486. 
In the beginning of the following year the new bishop released 
the president and fellows of Magdalen College from all actions 
respecting the Priory of Selborne ; and the prior and convent of 
Saint Swithun, as the chapter of Winchester cathedral, confirmed 
the release.f 
N. 293. " Relaxatio Petri epi Winton Ricardo Mayew, Presi- 
denti omnium actionum occasione indempnitatis sibi debite pro 
* There is nothing remarkable in this bull of pope Innocent sxcept^ the statement of the ammal 
revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is therein estimated at 160 flor. auri ; whereas bishop 
Godwin sets it at 337i. ISj. 6^d- Now a floren, so named, says Camden, because made by Flo- 
rentines, was a gold coin of king Edward III. in value 6s. whereof 160 is not one seventh part oV 
337f- ISs. 6jd. 
t The bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Priory. 
