ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 3Q3 
proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to entreat his hohness 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 fifty-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 VIII. 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. 
Wainfleet did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising from 
this new acquisition ; but departed this life in a few months after 
he had effected 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 I486. 
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 except the statement of the annual 
revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is therein estimated at 160 flor. auri ; whereas bishop 
Godwin sets it at 15«. 6^d. Now a floren, so named, says Camden, because made by Flo 
rentines, was a gold coin of king Edward Ul. in value 6«. whereof 160 is not one seventh part of 
337i. 15i. 6jd. 
t The bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Prior/. 
