OF SELBORNE. 
373 
LETTER XV, 
Though bifliop JPykeham appears fomewhat ftern and rigid in 
his vifitatorial charafter towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he was 
on the whole a liberal friend and benefador to that convent, which, 
like every fociety or individual that fell in h^s way, partook of 
the generolity and benevolence of that munificent prelate. 
" In the year 1^77 IFllUcvii of IVykeham, out of his mere good 
v/ill and liberality, difcharged the whole debts of the prior 
and convent of Selborne, to the amount of one hundred and ten 
marks eleven flidlings and fixpence"; and, a few years before 
*' he died, he made a free gift of one hundred marks to the fame 
" Priory: on which account the prior and convent voluntarily 
*' engaged for the celebration of two maffes a day by two canons 
of the convent for ten years, for the bifliop's welflire, if he 
" Oiould live fo long ; and for his foul if he fliould die before 
" the expiration of this term"." 
At this dlftancc of tim.e it feems matter of great V\'onder to us- 
how thefe focieties, fo nobly endowed, and whofe members were 
exempt by their very inFcitution from every means of perfonal and 
m Yet in ten years time we find, by the NotabiUs Vif.tatic, tl'.Rt all their relics, phte^ 
veftments, title-deeds, &c. were in pawn. 
" Lo^utlfs Life of Wykehanu 
family 
