OF SELBORNE. 
367 
" and cloifter in the dark and to fee that the doors of their 
church between the nave and the choir, and the gates of their 
cloifter opening into the fields, be conflantly kept fliut until 
their firft choir-fervice is over in the morning, at dinner time^ and 
when they meet at their evening collation 
Item 6th mentions that feveral of the canons are found to be 
very ignorant and illiterate, and enjoins the prior to fee that they 
be better inftru£led by a proper matter. 
Item 8th. The canons are here accufed of refufing to accept of 
their ftatutable clothing year by year, and of demanding a certain 
fpecified fum of money, as if it were their annual rent and due» 
This the bifhop forbids, and orders that the canons fl:iall be clothed 
out of the revenue of the Priory, and the old garments be laid by 
in a chamber and given to the poor, according to the rule of 
Saint Augi'jline. 
In Item 9th is a complaint that fome of the canons are given to 
wander out of the precinfts of the convent without leave ; and 
that others ride to their manors and farms, under pretence of in- 
fped:ing the concerns of the fociety, when they pleafe, and ftay as 
long as they pleafe. But they are enjoined never to ftir either 
about their own private concerns or the bufinefs of the convent 
without leave from the prior : and no canon is to go alone, but to 
have a grave brother to accompany him. 
The injunftion in Item 10th, at this diftance of time, appears 
rather ludicrous ; but the vifitor feems to be very ferious on the 
occafion, and fays that it has been evidently proved to him that 
fome of the canons, living diflblutely after the flefh, and not 
after the fpirit, fleep naked in their beds without their breeches 
^ A collation was a meal or repafi; on a fall day in lieu of a fupper, 
and 
