User:Zyephyrus/Antiquities
| THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. |
LETTER I.
IT is reasonable to suppose that in remote ages this woody and mountainous district was inhabited only by bears and wolves. Whether the Britons ever thought it worthy their attention, is not in our power to determine; but we may safely conclude, from circumstances, that it was not unknown to the Romans. Old people remember to have heard their fathers and grandfathers say that, in dry summers and in windy weather, pieces of money were sometimes found round the verge of Wolmer pond; and tradition had inspired the foresters with a notion that the bottom of that lake contained great stores of treasure. During the spring and summer of 1740 there was little rain; and the following summer also, 1741, was so uncommonly dry, that many springs and ponds failed, and this lake in particular, whose bed became as dusty as the surrounding heaths and wastes. This favourable juncture induced some of the forest-cottagers to begin a search, which was attended with such success, that all the labourers in the neighbourhood flocked to the spot, and with spades and hoes turned up great part of that large area, Instead of pots of coins, as they expected, they found great heaps, the one lying on the other, as if shot out of a bag; many of which were in good preservation. Silver and gold these inquirers expected to find; but their discoveries consisted solely of many hundreds of Roman copper-coins, and some medallions, all of the lower empire. There was not much virtù stirring at that time in this neighbourhood; however, some of the gentry and clergy around bought what pleased them best, and some dozens fell to the share of the author.
The owners at first held their commodity at a high price; but, finding that they were not likely to meet with dealers at such a rate, they soon lowered their terms, and sold the fairest as they could. The coins that were rejected became current, and passed for farthings at the petty shops. Of those that we saw, the greater part were of Marcus Aurelius, and the Empress Faustina, his wife, the father and mother of Commodus. Some of Faustina were in high relief, and exhibited a very agreeable set of features, which probably resembled that lady, who was more celebrated for her beauty than for her virtues. The medallions in general were of a paler colour than the coins. To pretend to account for the means of their coming to this place would be spending time in conjecture. The spot, I think, could not be a Roman camp, because it is commanded by hills on two sides; nor does it show the least traces of entrenchments; nor can I suppose that it was a Roman town, because I have too good an opinion of the taste and judgment of those polished conquerors to imagine that they would settle on so barren and dreary a waste.
note to letter i.
- 1 In October 1873 two earthenware vessels were found two feet under the surface of a field near Selborne containing about thirty thousand Roman and Roman-British coins.
LETTER II.
That Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in the time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs. But, as there are few if any accounts of the villages before Domesday, it will be best to begin with that venerable record. "Ipse rex tenet Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, et nunquam geldavit. De isto manerio dono dedit rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia. Tempore regis Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos et sex denarios; modo octo solidos et quatuor denarios." Here we see that Selborne was a royal manor: and that Editha, the queen of Edward the Confessor, had been lady of that manor, and was succeeded in it by the Conqueror, and that it had a church. Besides these, many circumstances concur to prove it to have been a Saxon village; such as the name of the place itself,* the names of many fields, and some families,t with a variety of words in husbandry and common life, still subsisting among the country people.
What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to this spot was the beautiful spring or fountain called Well Head,‡ which induced them to build by the banks of that perennial
* Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as it has been variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation; for Sel signifies great, and burn torrens, a brook or rivulet: so that the name seems to be derived from the great perennial stream that breaks out at the upper end of the village.—Sel also signifies bonus, item fœcundus, fertilis. "Sel goepr-run: fœcunda graminis clausura; fertile pascuum: a meadow in the parish of Godelming is still called Sal-gars-ton" Lye's Saxon Dictionary ', in the Supplement, by Mr. Manning.
† Thus, the name of Aldred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp means a soldier. Thus we have a church-litton, or enclosure for dead bodies, and not a church-yard; there is also a Culver-croft near the Grange-farm, being the enclosure where the priory pigeon-house stood, from culver a pigeon. Again there are three steep pastures in this parish called the Lithe, from Hlithe, clivus. The wicker-work that binds and fastens down a hedge on the top is called ether, from ether, a hedge. When the good women call their hogs they cry sic, sic,1 not knowing that sic is Saxon, or rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice or brushwood our countrymen call rise, from hris, frondes and talk of a load of rise. Within the author's memory the Saxon plurals, housen and peason, were in common use. But it would be endless to instance in every circumstance: he that wishes for more specimens must frequent a farmer's kitchen. I have therefore selected some words to show how familiar the Saxon dialect was to this district, since in more than seven hundred years is far from being obliterated.
‡ Well-head signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence we draw water. For particulars about which see Letter I. to Mr. Pennant.
1 Σικα, porcus, apud Lacones; un Porceau chez les Lacèdemoniens: ce mot a sans doute estè pris des Celtes, qui disoent sic, pour marquer un porceau. Encore aujour'huy quand les Bretons chassent ces animaux, ils ne disent autrement, que sic, sic.—Antiquité de la Nation et de la Langue des Celtes, par Pezron. current; for ancient settlers loved to reside by brooks and rivulets, where they could dip for their water without the trouble and expense of digging wells and of drawing.
It remains still unsettled among the antiquaries at what time tracts of land were first appropriated to the chase alone for the amusement of the Sovereign. Whether our Saxon monarchs had any royal forests, does not, I believe, appear on record; but the “Constitutiones de Foresta,” of Canute, the Dane, are come down to us. We shall not, therefore, pretend to say whether Wolmer Forest existed as a royal domain before the conquest. If it did not, we may suppose it was laid out by some of our earliest Norman kings, who were exceedingly attached to the pleasures of the chase, and resided much at Winchester, which lies at a moderate distance from this district. The Plantagenet princes seem to have been pleased with Wolmer, for tradition says that King John resided just upon the verge, at Ward-le-ham, on a regular and remarkable mount, still called King John’s Hill, and Lodge Hill; and Edward III. had a chapel in his park, or enclosure, at Kingsley.* Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Richard, Duke of York, say my evidences, were both, in their turns, wardens of Wolmer Forest, which seems to have served for an appointment for the younger princes of the royal family, as it may again.
I have intentionally mentioned Edward III. and the dukes Humphrey and Richard, before King Edward II., because I have reserved, for the entertainment of my readers, a pleasant anecdote respecting that prince, with which I shall close this letter.
As Edward II. was hunting on Wolmer Forest, Morris Ken, of the kitchen, fell from his horse several times, at which accidents the king laughed immoderately; and, when the chase was over, ordered him twenty shillings,† an enormous sum for those days!
* The parish of Kingsley lies between and divides Wolmer Forest from Ayles Holt Forest. See Letter IX. to Mr. Pennant.
† “Item, paid at the lodge at Wolmer, when the king was stag-hunting there, to Morris Ken, of the kitchen, because he rode before the king and often fell from his horse, at which the king laughed exceedingly—a gift, by command, of twenty shillings.”—A MS. in possession of Thomas Astle, Esq., containing the private expenses of Edward II. Proper allowances ought to be made for the youth of this monarch, whose spirits also, we may suppose, were much exhilarated by the sport of the day; but, at the same time, it is reasonable to remark, that, whatever might be the occasions of Ken’s first fall, the subsequent ones seem to have been designed. The scullion appears to have been an artful fellow, and to have seen the king’s foible, which furnishes an early specimen of that his easy softness and facility of temper, of which the infamous Gaveston took such advantages, as brought innumerable calamities on the nation, and involved the prince at last in misfortunes and sufferings too deplorable to be mentioned, without horror and amazement.
LETTER III.
From the silence of Domesday respecting churches, it has been supposed that few villages had any at the time when that record was taken; but Selborne, we see, enjoyed the benefit of one: hence, we may conclude, that this place was in no abject state even at that very distant period. How many fabrics have succeeded each other since the days of Radfredrus the presbyter, we cannot pretend to say; our business leads us to a description of the present edifice, in which we shall be circumstantial.
Our church, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, consists of three aisles, and measures fifty-four feet in length, by forty-seven in breadth, being almost as broad as it is long. The present building has no pretensions to antiquity, and is, as I suppose, of no earlier date than the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. It is perfectly plain and unadorned, without painted glass, carved work, sculpture, or tracery. But when I say it has no claim to antiquity, I would mean to be understood the fabric in general; for the pillars, which support the roof, are undoubtedly old, being of that low, squat, thick order, usually called Saxon. These, I should imagine, upheld the roof of a former church, which, falling into decay, was rebuilt on those massy props, because their strength had preserved them from the injuries of time.* Upon these rest blunt Gothic arches, such as prevailed in the reign above-mentioned, and by which, as a criterion, we would prove the date of the building.
At the bottom of the south aisle, between the west and south doors, stands the font, which is deep and capacious, and consists of three massy round stones, piled one on another, without the least ornament or sculpture: the cavity at the top is lined with lead, and has a pipe at the bottom to convey off the water after the sacred ceremony is performed.
The east end of the south aisle is called the South Chancel, and, till within these thirty years, was divided off by old carved Gothic framework of timber, having been a private chantry. In this opinion we are more confirmed by observing two Gothic niches within the space, the one in the east wall and the other in the south, near which there probably stood images and altars.
In the middle aisle there is nothing remarkable: but I remember when its beams were hung with garlands in honour of young women of the parish, reputed to have died virgins; and recollect to have seen the clerk’s wife cutting, in white paper, the resemblances of gloves, and ribbons to be twisted in knots and roses, to decorate these memorials of chastity. In the church of Faringdon, which is the next parish, many garlands of this sort still remain.
The north aisle is narrow and low, with a sloping ceiling, reaching within eight or nine feet of the floor. It had originally a flat roof, covered with lead, till, within a century past, a churchwarden stripping off the lead, in order, as he said, to have it mended, sold it to a plumber, and ran away with the money. This aisle has no door, for an obvious reason; because the north side of the churchyard, being surrounded by the vicarage-garden, affords no path to that side of the church. Nothing can be more irregular than the pews of this church, which are of all dimensions and
* In the same manner, to compare great things with small, did Wykeham, when he new-built the cathedral at Winchester, from the tower westward, apply to his purpose the old piers or pillars of Bishop Walkelin’s church, by blending Saxon and Gothic architecture together.—See LOWTH’S Life of Wykeham. heights, being patched up according to the fancy of the owners; but whoever nicely examines them will find that the middle aisle had, on each side, a regular row of benches of solid oak, all alike, with a low back-board to each. These we should not hesitate to say are coeval with the present church; and especially as it is to be observed that, at their ends, they are ornamented with carved blunt Gothic niches, exactly correspondent to the arches of the church, and to a niche in the south wall. The fourth aisle also has a row of these benches; but some are decayed through age, and the rest much disguised by modern alterations.
At the upper end of this aisle, and running out to the north, stands a transept, known by the name of the North Chancel, measuring twenty-one feet from south to north, and nineteen feet from east to west: this was intended, no doubt, as a private chantry; and was also, till of late, divided off by a Gothic framework of timber. In its north wall, under a very blunt Gothic arch, lies perhaps the founder of this edifice, which, from the shape of its arch, may be deemed no older than the latter end of the reign of Henry VII. The tomb was examined some years ago, but contained nothing except the skull and thigh-bones of a large tall man, and the bones of a youth or woman, lying in a very irregular manner, without any escutcheon or other token to ascertain the names or rank of the deceased. The grave was very shallow, and lined with stone at the bottom and on the sides.
From the east wall project four stone brackets, which I conclude supported images and crucifixes. In the great thick pilaster, jutting out between this transept and the chancel, there is a very sharp Gothic niche, of older date than the present chantry or church. But the chief pieces of antiquity are two narrow stone coffin-lids, which compose part of the floor, and lie from west to east, with the very narrow ends eastward: these belong to remote times; and, if originally placed here, which I doubt, must have been part of the pavement of an older transept. At present there are no coffins under them, whence I conclude they have been removed to this place from some part of a former church. One of these lids is so eaten by time, that no sculpture can be discovered upon it; or, perhaps, it may be the wrong side uppermost; but on the other, which seems to be of stone of a closer and harder texture, is to be discerned a discus, with a cross on it, at the end of a staff or rod, the well-known symbol of a Knight Templar.*
This order was distinguished by a red cross on the left shoulder of their cloak, and by this attribute in their hand. Now, if these stones belonged to Knights Templars, they must have lain here many centuries; for this order came into England early in the reign of King Stephen in 1113; and was dissolved in the time of Edward II. in 1312, having subsisted only one hundred and thirty-nine years. Why I should suppose that Knights Templars were occasionally buried at this church, will appear in some future letter, when we come to treat more particularly concerning the property they possessed here, and the intercourse that subsisted between them and the priors of Selborne.
We must now proceed to the chancel, properly so called, which seems to be coeval with the church, and is in the same plain unadorned style, though neatly kept. This room measures thirty-one feet in length, and sixteen feet and a half in breadth, and is wainscoted all round, as high as to the bottom of the windows. The space for the communion-table is raised two steps above the rest of the floor, and railed in with oaken balusters. Here I shall say somewhat of the windows of the chancel in particular, and of the whole fabric in general. They are mostly of that simple and unadorned sort called Lancet, some single, some double, and some in triplets. At the east end of the chancel are two of a moderate size, near each other; and in the north wall two very distant small ones, unequal in length and height: and in the south wall are two, one on each side of the chancel-door, that are broad and squat, and of a different order. At the east end of the south aisle of the church there is a large lancet-window in a triplet; and two very small, narrow, single ones in the south wall, and a broad squat window beside, and a double lancet one in the west end; so that the appearance is very irregular. In the north aisle are two windows, made shorter when the roof was sloped; and in the
* See Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. ii., where there is a fine engraving of a Knight-Templar, by Hollar. north transept a large triple window, shortened at the time of a repair in 1721: when over it was opened a round one of considerable size, which affords an agreeable light, and renders that chantry the most cheerful part of the edifice.
The church and chancels have all covered roofs, ceiled about the year 1633; before which they were open to the tiles and shingles, showing the naked rafters, and threatening the congregation with the fall of a spar, or a blow from a piece of loose mortar.
On the north wall of the chancel is fixed a large oval white marble monument, with the following inscription; and at the foot of the wall, over the deceased, and inscribed with his name, age, arms, and time of death, lies a large slab of black marble:
Prope hunc parietem sepelitur
GTLBERTUS WHITE, SAMSONIS WHITE, de
Oxon, militis filius tertms, Collegii Magdale-nensis ibidem alumnus, & socius. Tandem faven-te collegio ad hanc ecclesiam promotus; ubi primæ-vâ morum simplicitate, et diffusâ erga omnes benevolentiâ feliciter consenuit.
Pastor fidelis, comis, affabilis,
Maritus, et pater amantissimus,
A conjuge invicem, et liberis, atque
A parochianis impensé dilectus.
Pauperibus ita beneficus
ut decimam partem census
moribundus
piis usibus consecravit.
Meritis demum juxta et annis plenus
ex hac vitâ migravit Feb. 13°
anno salutis 172⅞
Ætatis suǣ 77.
Hoc posuit Rebecca
Conjux illius mæstissima,
mox secutura.
On the same wall is newly fixed a small square table-monument of white marble, inscribed in the following manner:
Sacred to the memory
of the Revd . ANDREW ETTY, B.D.
23 Years Vicar of this parish:
In whose character
The conjugal, the parental, and the sacerdotal virtues
were so happily combined
as to deserve the imitation of mankind.
And if in any particular he followed more invariably
the steps of his blessed Master,
It was in his humility.
His parishioners,
especially the sick and necessitous,
as long as any traces of his memory shall remain,
must lament his death.
To perpetuate such an example, this stone is erected;
as while living he was a preacher of righteousness,
so, by it, he being dead yet speaketh.
He died April 8th, 1784, aged 66 years.
LETTER IV.
We have now taken leave of the inside of the church, and shall pass by a door at the west end of the middle aisle into the belfry. This room is part of a handsome square embattled tower of forty-five feet in height, and of much more modern date than the church; but old enough to have needed a thorough repair in 1781, when it was neatly stuccoed at a considerable expense, by a set of workmen who were employed on it for the greatest part of the summer. The old bells, three in number, loud and out of tune, were taken down in 1735, and cast into four; to which Sir Simon Stuart, the grandfather of the present baronet, added a fifth at his own expense; and, bestowing it in the name of his favourite daughter, Mrs. Mary Stuart, caused it to be cast with the following motto round it:
“Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria:
Illius et laudes nomen ad astra sono.”
The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was observed as a high festival by the village, and rendered more joyous, by an order from the donor, that the treble bell should be fixed bottom upward in the ground and filled with punch, of which all present were permitted to partake.
The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and would not be worthy attention did it not shelter a fine sharp Gothic doorway. This is undoubtedly much older than the present fabric; and, being found in good preservation, was worked into the wall, and is the grand entrance into the church; nor are the folding-doors to be passed over in silence; since, from their thick and clumsy structure, and the rude flourished-work of their hinges, they may possibly be as ancient as the doorway itself.
The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south side of the roof of the middle aisle, is covered with oaken shingles instead of tiles, on account of their lightness, which favours the ancient and crazy timber-frame. And, indeed, the consideration of accidents by fire excepted, this sort of roofing is much more eligible than tiles. For shingles well seasoned, and cleft from quartered timber, never warp, nor let in drifting snow; nor do they shiver with frost; nor are they liable to be blown off, like tiles; but, when nailed down ast for a long period, as experience has shown us in this place, where those that face to the north are known to have endured, untouched, by undoubted tradition, for more than a century.
Considering the size of the church, and the extent of the parish, the churchyard is very scanty; and especially as all wish to be buried on the south side, which is become such a mass of mortality that no person can be there interred without disturbing or displacing the bones of his ancestors. There is reason to suppose that it once was larger, and extended to what is now the vicarage court and garden; because many human bones have been dug up in those parts several yards without the present limits. At the east end are a few graves; yet none till very lately on the north side; but, as two or three families of best repute have begun to bury in that quarter, prejudice may wear out by degrees, and their example be followed by the rest of the neighbourhood.
In speaking of the church, I have all along talked of the east and west-end, as if the chancel stood exactly true to those points of the compass; but this is by no means the case, for the fabric bears so much to the north of the east that the four corners of the tower, and not the four sides, stand to the four cardinal points. The best method of accounting for this deviation seems to be, that the workmen, who probably were employed in the longest days, endeavoured to set the chancels to the rising of the sun.
Close by the church, at the west end, stands the vicarage-house; an old, but roomy and convenient edifice. It faces very agreeably to the morning sun, and is divided from the village by a neat and cheerful court. According to the manner of old times, the hall was open to the roof; and so continued, probably, till the vicars became family-men, and began to want more conveniences; when they flung a floor across, and, by partitions, divided the space into chambers. In this hall we remember a date, some time in the reign of Elizabeth; it was over the door that leads to the stairs.
Behind the house is a garden of an irregular shape, but well laid out; whose terrace commands so romantic and picturesque a prospect, that the first master in landscape might contemplate it with pleasure, and deem it an object well worthy of his pencil.
LETTER V.
In the churchyard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect bespeaks it to be of a great age: it seems to have seen several centuries, and is probably coeval with the church, and therefore may be deemed an antiquity: the body is squat, short, and thick, and measures twenty- three feet in the girth, supporting a head of suitable extent to its bulk. This is a male tree, which in the spring sheds clouds of dust, and fills the atmosphere around with ts farina.
As far as we have been able to observe, the males of this species become much larger than the females; and it has so fallen out that most of the yew-trees in the churchyards of this neighbourhood are males: but this must have been matter of mere accident, since men, when they first planted yews, little dreamed that there were sexes in trees.
In a yard, in the midst of the street, till very lately grew a middle-sized female tree of the same species, which commonly bore great crops of berries. By the high winds usually prevailing about the autumnal equinox, these berries, then ripe, were blown down into the road, where the hogs ate them. And it was very remarkable, that, though barrow-hogs and young sows found no inconvenience from this food, yet milch-sows often died after such a repast: a circumstance that can be accounted for only by supposing that the latter, being much exhausted and hungry, devoured a larger quantity.
While mention is making of the bad effects ot yew-berries, it may be proper to remind the unwary that the twigs and leaves of yew, though eaten in a very small quantity, are certain death to horses and cows, and that in a few minutes. A horse tied to a yew-hedge, or to a faggot-stack of dead yew, shall be found dead before the owner can be aware that any danger is at hand; and the writer has been several times a sorrowful witness to losses of this kind among his friends; and in the island of Ely had once the mortification to see nine young steers or bullocks of his own all lying dead in a heap from browsing a little on a hedge of yew in an old garden, into which they had broken in snowy weather. Even the clippings of a yew hedge have destroyed a whole dairy of cows when thrown inadvertently into a yard. And yet sheep and turkeys, and, as park-keepers say, deer will crop these trees with impunity.
Some intelligent persons assert that the branches of yew, while green, are not noxious; and that they will kill only when dead and withered, by lacerating the stomach; but to . this assertion we cannot by any means assent, because, among the number of cattle that we have known fall victims to this deadly food, not one has been found, when it was opened, but had a lump of green yew in its paunch. True it is, “hat yew-trees stand for twenty years or more in a field, and no bad consequences ensue; but at some time or other cattle, either from wantonness when fall, or from hunger when empty (from both which circumstances we have seen them perish), will be meddling, to their certain destruction; the yew seems to be a very improper tree for a pasture-field.
Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what period this tree first obtained a place in churchyards. A statute passed A.D. 1307 and 35 Edward I., the title of which is “Ne rector arbores in cemeterio prosternat.” Now if it is recollected that we seldom see any other very large or ancient tree in a churchyard but yews, this statute must have principally related to this species of tree; and consequently their being planted in churchyards is 01 much more ancient date than the year 1307.
As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respectable parishioners were buried under their shade before the improper custom was introduced of burying within the body of the church, where the living are to assemble. Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse,* was buried under an oak; the most honourable place of interment probably next to the cave of Machpelah,† which seems to have been appropriated to the remains of the patriarchal family alone.
The farther use of yew-trees might be as a screen to churches, by their thick foliage, from the violence of winds; perhaps also for the purpose of archery, the best long bows being made of that material; and we do not hear that they are planted in the churchyards of other parts of Europe, where long bows were not so much in use. They might also be placed as a shelter to the congregation assembling before the church doors were opened, and as an emblem of mortality by their funereal appearance. In the south of England every churchyard almost has its tree, and some two; but in the north, we understand, few are to be found.
The idea of R. C. that the yew-tree afforded its branches instead of palms for the processions on Palm Sunday, is a good one, and deserves attention. See “Gent. Mag.” vol. 1. p. 128.
*Gen. xxxv. 8. † Gen. xxiii. 9.
LETTER VI.
The living of Selborne was a very small vicarage; but, being in the patronage of Magdalen College, in the university of Oxford, that society endowed it with the great tithes of Selborne, more than a century ago; and since the year 1758 again with the great tithes of Oakhanger, called Bene's parsonage; so that, together, it is become a respectable piece of preferment, to which one of the fellows is always presented. The vicar holds the great tithes, by lease, under the college. The great disadvantage of this living is, that it has not one foot of glebe near home.*
| ITS PAYMENTS ARE— | £. | s. | d. |
| King's books | 8 | 2 | 1 |
| Yearly tenths | 0 | 16 | 2½ |
| Yearly procurations for Blackmore and Oakhanger Chap, with acquit |
0 | 1 | 7 |
| Selborne procurations and acquit | 0 | 9 | 0 |
I am unable to give a complete list of the vicars of this parish till towards the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; from which period the registers furnish a regular series.
In Domesday we find thus—" De isto manerio dono dedit Rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia." So that before Domesday, which was compiled between the years 1081 and 1086, here was an officiating minister at this place.
After this, among my documents, I find occasional mention of a vicar here and there; the first is—
Roger, instituted in 1254.
In 1410 John Lynne was vicar of Selborne.
In 1411 Hugo Tybbe was vicar.
The presentations to the vicarage of Selborne generally ran in the name of the prior and the convent; but Tybbe was presented by Prior John Wynechestre only.
* At Bene's, or Bin's, parsonage there is a house and stout barn, and seven acres of glebe; Bene's parsonage is three miles from the church. June 29th, 1528, William Fisher, vicar of Selborne, resigned to Miles Peyrson.
1594, William White appears to have been vicar to this time. Of this person there is nothing remarkable, but that he hath made a regular entry twice in the register of Selborne of the funeral of Thomas Cowper, bishop of Winchester, as if he had been buried at Selborne; yet this learned prelate, who died 1594, was buried at Winchester, in the cathedral, near the episcopal throne.*
1595, Richard Bough ton, vicar.
1596, William Inkforbye, vicar.
May 1606, Thomas Phippes, vicar.
June 1631, Ralph Austine, vicar.
July 1632, John Longworth. This unfortunate gentleman, living in the time of Cromwell’s usurpation, was deprived of his preferment for many years, probably because he would not take the league and covenant; for I observe that his father-in-law, the Reverend Jethro Beal, rector of Faringdon, which is the next parish, enjoyed his benefice during the whole of that unhappy period. Longworth, after he was dispossessed, retired to a little tenement about one hundred and fifty yards from the church, where he earned a small pittance by the practice of physic. During those dismal times it was not uncommon for the deposed clergy to take up a medical character as was the case in particular, I know, with the Reverend Mr. Yalden, rector of Compton, near Guildford, in the county of Surrey. Vicar Longworth used frequently to mention to his sons, who told it to my relations, that, the Sunday after his deprivation, his puritanical successor stepped into the pulpit with no small petulance and exultation: and began his sermon from Psalm xx. 8, “They are brought down and fallen; but we are risen and stand upright.” This person lived to be restored in 1660, and continued vicar for eighteen years; but was so impoverished by his misfortunes, that he left the vicarage-house and premises in a very abject and dilapidated state.
July 1678. Richard Byfield, who left eighty pounds by will, the interest to be applied to apprentice out poor children; but
*See “Godwin de Præsulibus,” Folio Cant. 1743, p. 239
April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar.
June, 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in Magdalen College that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert White, M.A., who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year of his age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also floored and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were paved with stone, and had naked walls; he enlarged the kitchen and brewhouse, and dug a cellar and well; he also built a large new barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front court, which he laid out in walks and borders; and entirely planned the back garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed “the sum of forty pounds to be laid out in the most necessary repairs of the church; that is, in strengthening and securing such parts as seem decaying and dangerous.” With this sum two large buttresses were erected to support the east end of the south wall of the church, and the gable-end wall of the west end of the south aisle was new built from the ground.
By his will also he gave “one hundred pounds to be laid out on lands; the yearly rents whereof shall be employed in teaching the poor children of Selbourn parish to read and write, and say their prayers and catechism, and to sew and knit;—and be under the direction of his executrix as long as she lives; and, after her, under the direction of such of his children and their issue, as shall live in or within five miles of the said parish; and on failure of any such, then under the direction of the vicar of Selbourn for the time being; but still to the uses above-named." With this sum was purchased, of Thomas Turville, of Hawkeley, in the county of Southampton, yeoman, and Hannah his wife, two closes of freehold land, commonly called Collier's, containing, by estimation, eleven acres, lying in Hawkeley aforesaid. These closes are let at this time, 1785, on lease, at the rate of three pounds by the year.
This vicar also gave by will two hundred pounds towards the repairs of the highways* in the parish of Selborne. That sum was carefully and judiciously laid out in the summer of the year 1730, by his son John White, who made a solid and firm causey from Rood Green, all down Honey Lane, to a farm called Oak Woods, where the sandy soil begins. This miry and gulfy lane was chosen as worthy of repair, because it leads to the forest, and thence through the Holt to the town of Farnham in Surrey, the only market in those days for men who had wheat to sell in this neighbourhood. This causey was so deeply bedded with stone, so properly raised above the level of the soil, and so well drained, that it has, in some degree, withstood fifty-four years of neglect and abuse; and might, with moderate attention, be rendered a solid and comfortable road. The space from Rood Green to Oak Woods measures about three-quarters of a mile.
In 1727, William Henry Cane, B.D., became vicar, and, among several alterations and repairs, new-built the back front of the vicarage-house.
On February 1st, 1740, Duncombe Bristowe, D.D., was instituted to this living. What benefactions this vicar bestowed on the parish will be best explained by the following passages from his will:—"Item, I hereby give and beaqueath to the minister and church-wardens of the parish of Selbourn, in the county of Southampton, a mahogany table, which I have ordered to be made for the celebration of the Holy Communion; and also the
* "Such legacies were very common in former times, before any effectual laws were made for the repairs of highways."—Sir John Cullum's Hawsted, p. 15.
On November 12th, 1758, Andrew Etty, B.D., became vicar. Among many useful repairs he new-roofed the body of the vicarage-house; and wainscoted, up to the bottom of the windows, the whole of the chancel; to the neatness and decency of which he always paid the most exact attention.
On September 25th, 1784, Christopher Taylor, B.D., was inducted into the vicarage of Selborne.
LETTER VII.
I shall now proceed to the priory, which is undoubtedly the most interesting part of our history.
The Priory of Selborne was founded by Peter de la Roche, or de Rupibus,* one of those accomplished foreigners that resorted to the court of King John, where they were usually caressed, and met with a more favourable reception than ought, in prudence, to have been shown by any monarch to strangers. This adventurer was a Poictevin by birth, had been bred to arms in his youth, and distinguished by knighthood. Historians all agree not to speak very favourably of this remarkable man; they allow that he was possessed of courage and fine abilities, but then they charge him with arbitrary principles, and violent conduct. By his insinuating manners he soon rose high in the favour of John; and in 1205, early in the reign of that prince, was appointed bishop of
* See “Godwin de Præsulibus Angliæ”. Folio. London, 1743, p. 217.
The barons saw with indignation a stranger possessed of all the power and influence, to part of which they thought they had a claim; they therefore entered into an association against him, and determined to wrest some of that authority from him which he had so unreasonably usurped. The bishop discerned the storm at a distance; and, prudently resolving to give way to that torrent of envy which he knew not how to withstand, withdrew quietly to the Holy Land, where he resided some time.
At this juncture a very small part of Palestine remained in the hands of the Christians; they had been by Saladine dispossessed of Jerusalem, and all the internal parts, near forty years before; and with difficulty maintained some maritime towns and garrisons; yet the busy and enterprising spirit of de Rupibus could not be at rest; he distinguished himself by the splendour and magnificence of his expenses, and amused his mind by strengthening fortresses and castles, and by removing and endowing of churches. Before his expedition to the east he had signalised himself as the founder of convents, and as a benefactor to hospitals and monasteries.
In the year 1231 he returned again to England; and the very next year, in 1232, began to build and endow the Priory of Selborne. As this great work followed so close upon his return, it is not improbable that it was the result of a vow made during his voyage, and especially as it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Why the bishop made choice of Selborne for the scene of his munificence can never be determined now; it can only be said that the parish was in his diocese, and lay almost midway between Winchester and Farnham, or South Waltham and Farnham; from either of which places he could without much trouble overlook his workmen, and observe what progress they made; and that the situation was retired, with a stream running by it, and sequestered from the world, amidst woods and meadows, and so far proper for the site of a religious house.*
The first person with whom the founder treated about the purchase of land was Jacobus de Achangre, or Ochangre, a gentleman of property who resided in that hamlet; and, as appears, at the house now called Oakhanger-house. With him he agreed for a croft, or little close of land, known by the name of La liega, or La lyge, which was to be the immediate site of the Priory.
De Achangre also accommodated the bishop at the same instant with three more adjoining crofts, which for a time was all the footing that this institution obtained in the parish. The seller in the conveyance says, "Warantizabimus, defendemus, et æquietabimus contra omnes gentes;" viz., "We will warrant the thing sold against all claims from any quarter." In modern conveyancing this would be termed a covenant for further assurance. Afterwards is added—"Pro hac autem donacione, &c., dedit mihi pred. Episcopus sexdecem marcas argenti in Gersumam: "i.e., "The bishop gave me sixteen silver marks as a consideration for the thing purchased."
As the grant from Jac. de Achangre was without date,† and the next is circumstanced in the same manner, we cannot say exactly what interval there was between the two purchases; but we find that Jacobus de Nortun, a neighbouring gentleman, also soon sold
* The institution at Selborne was a priory of black-canons of the order of St. Augustine, called also canons-regular. Regular-canons were such as lived in a conventual manner under one roof, had a common refectory and dormitory, and were bound by vows to observe the rules and statutes of their order: in fine, they were a kind of religious, whose discipline was less rigid than the monks. The chief rule of these canons was that of St. Augustine, who was constituted bishop of Hippo, A.D. 395; but they were not brought into England till after the conquest; and seem not to have obtained the appellation of Augustine canons till some years after. Their habit was a long black cassock, with a white rocket over it; and over that a black cloak and hood. The monks were always shaved; but these canons wore their hair and beards, and caps on their heads. There were of these canons, and women of the same order called Canonesses, about 175 houses.
† The custom of affixing dates to deeds was not become general in the reign of Henry III.
Finding himself still straitened for room, the founder applied to his royal master, Henry, who was graciously pleased to bestow certain lands in the manor of Selborne on the new priory of his favourite minister. These grounds had been the property of Stephen de Lucy; and, abutting upon the narrow limits of th convent, became a very commodious and agreeable acquisition. This grant, I find, was made on March 9th, in the eighteenth year of Henry, viz., 1234, being two years after the foundation of the monastery. The royal donor bestowed his favour with good grace, by adding to it almost every immunity and privilege that could have been specified in the law-language of the times.—"Quare volumus prior, &c., habeant totam terram &c., cum omnibus libertatibus in bosco et piano, in viis et semitis, pratis et pascuis; aquis et piscariis; infra burgum, et extra burgum, cum soka et saca, Thol et Them, Infangenethef et Utfangenethef, et hamsocne et blodwite, et pecunia que dari solet pro murdro et forstal, et flemenestrick, et cum quietancia de omni scotto et geldo, et de omnibus auxiliis regum, vicecomitum, et omn: ministralium suorum; et hidagio et exercitibus, et scutagiis, et tallagiis, et shiris et hundredis, et placitis et querelis, et warda et wardpeny, et opibus castellorum et pontium, et clausuris parcorum, et omni carcio et sumagio, et domor: regal: edificatione, et omnimoda reparatione, et cum omnibus aliis libertatibus.” This grant was made out by Richard bishop of Chichester, then chancellor, at the town of Northampton, before the lord chief justiciary, who was the founder himself.
The charter of foundation of the Priory, dated 1233, comes next in order to be considered; but being of some length, I shall not interrupt my narrative by placing it here. This my copy, taken from the original, I have compared with Dugdale’s copy, and find that they perfectly agree; except that in the latter the preamble and the names of the witnesses are omitted. Yet I think it proper to quote a passage from this charter: “Et ipsa domus religiosa a cujuslibet alterius domûs religiosœ subjectione libera permaneat, et in omnibus absoluta" to show how much Dugdale was mistaken when he inserted Selborne among the alien priories; forgetting that this disposition of the convent contradicted the grant that he had published. In the “Monasticon Anglicanum,” in English, p. 119, is part of his catalogue of alien priories, suppressed 2 Henry V., viz., 1414, where may be seen as follows:—
S.
Sele, Sussex,
seleburn.
Shirburn.
This appeared to me from the first to have been an oversight, before I had seen my authentic evidences. For priories alien, a few conventual ones excepted, were little better than granges to foreign abbeys, and their priors little more than bailiffs removable at will; whereas the priory of Selborne possessed the valuable estates and manors of Selborne, Achangre, Norton, Brompden, Bassinges, Basingstoke, and Natele; and the prior challenged the right of pillory, thurcet, and furcas, and every manorial privilege.
I find next a grant from Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, to the prior of Selborne,—“de tota mora [a moor or bog] ubi Beme oritur, usque ad campum vivarii, et de prato voc. Sydenmeade cum abutt: et de cursu aque molendini.” And also a grant in reversion “unius virgate terre” (a yard land), in Achangre at the death of Richard Actedene his sister’s husband, who had no child. He was to present a pair of gloves of one penny value to the prior and canons, to be given annually by the said Richard; and to quit all claim to the said lands in reversion, provided the prior and canons would engage annually to pay to the king, through the hands of his bailiffs of Aulton, ten shillings at four quarterly payments, “pro omnibus serviciis, consuetudinibus, exactionibus, et demandis.”
This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger, and lived probably at the spot now called Chapel-farm. The grant bears date the 17th year of the reign of Henry III. (viz. 1233).
It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for lands or tenements that might be produced from my vouchers. I shall therefore pass over all such for the present, and conclude this letter with a remark that must strike every thinking person with some degree of wonder. No sooner had a monastic institution got a footing, but the neighbourhood began to be touched with a secret and religious awe. Every person round was desirous to promote so good a work; and either by sale, by grant, or by gift in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a benefactor. They who had not lands to spare gave roads to accommodate the infant foundation. The religious were not backward in keeping up this pious propensity, which they observed so readily influenced the breasts of men. Thus did the more opulent monasteries add house to house, and field to field, and by degrees manor to manor, till at last “there was no place left;” but every district around became appropriated to the purposes of their founders, and every precinct was drawn into the vortex.
LETTER VIII.
Our forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy and bustling, and as important, as ourselves: yet have their names and transactions been forgotten from century to century, and have sunk into oblivion; nor has this happened only to the vulgar, but even to men remarkable and famous in their generation. I was led into this train of thinking by finding in my vouchers that Sir Adam Gurdon was an inhabitant of Selborne, and a man of the first rank and property in the parish. By Sir Adam Gurdon I would be understood to mean that leading and accomplished malcontent in the Mountfort faction, who distinguished himself by his daring conduct in the reign of Henry III. The first that we hear of this person in my papers is, that with two others he was bailiff of Alton before the sixteenth of Henry III., viz., about 1231, and then not knighted. Who Gurdon was, and whence he came, does not appear: yet there is reason to suspect that he was originally a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised himself by marrying women of property. The name of Gurdon does not seem to be known in the south; but there is a name so like it in an adjoining kingdom, and which belongs to two or three noble families, that it is probable this remarkable person was a North Briton; and the more so, since the Christian name of Adam is a distinguished one to this day among the family of the Gordons. But, be this as it may, Sir Adam Gurdon has been noticed by all the writers ot English history for his bold disposition and disaffected spirit, in that he not only figured during the successful rebellion of Leicester but kept up the war after the defeat and death of that baron, entrenching himself in the woods of Hampshire, towards the town of Farnham. After the battle of Evesham, in which Mountfort fell, in the year 1265, Gurdon might not think it safe to return to his house for fear of a surprise; but cautiously fortified himself amidst the forests and woodlands with which he was so well acquainted. Prince Edward, desirous of putting an end to the troubles which had so long harassed the kingdom, pursued the arch-rebel into his fastnesses, attacked his camp, leaped over the entrenchments, and, singling out Gurdon, ran him down, wounded him, and took him prisoner.*
There is not perhaps in all history a more remarkable instance of command of temper, and magnanimity, than this before us: that a young prince, in the moment of victory, when he had the fell adversary of the crown and royal family at his mercy, should
* M. Paris, p. 675, and Triveti Annale.
LETTER IX.
It has been hinted in a former letter that Sir Adam Gurdon had availed himself by marrying women of property. By my evidences it appears that he had three wives, and probably in the following order: Constantia, Ameria, and Agnes. The first of these ladies, who was the companion of his middle life, seems to have been a person of considerable fortune, which she inherited from Thomas Makerel, a gentleman of Selborne, who was either her father or uncle. The second, Ameria, calls herself the quondam wife of Sir Adam, “quæ fui uxor,” etc., and talks of her sons under age. Now Gurdon had no son: and beside, Agnes, in another document, says, “Ego Agnes quondam uxor Domini Adæ Gurdon in pura et ligea viduitate mea:” but Gurdon could not leave two widows; and therefore it seems probable that he had been divorced from Ameria, who afterwards married and had sons. By Agnes Sir Adam had a daughter Johanna, who was his heiress, to whom Agnes in her life-time surrendered part of her jointure: he had also a bastard son.
Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now called Temple, lying about two miles east of the church, which had been the property of Thomas Makerel.
In the year 1262 he petitioned the prior of Selborne in his own name, and that of his wife Constantia only, for leave to build him an oratory in his manor-house, “in curia sua.” Licenses of this sort were frequently obtained by men of fortune and rank from the bishop of the diocese, the archbishop, and sometimes, as I have seen instances, from the Pope; not only for convenience’ sake, and on account of distance, and the badness of the roads, but as a matter of state and distinction. Why the owner should apply to the prior, in preference to the bishop of the diocese, and how the former became competent to such a grant, I cannot say; but that the priors of Selborne did take that privilege is plain, because some years afterwards, in 1280, Prior Richard granted to Henry Waterford and his wife Nicholaa, a licence to build an oratory in their court-house, “curia sua de Waterford,” in which they might celebrate divine service, saving the rights of the mother church of Basynges. Yet all the while the prior of Selborne grants with such reserve and caution, as if in doubt of his power, and leaves Gurdon and his lady answerable in future to the bishop, or his ordinary, or to the vicar for the time being, in case they should infringe the rights of the mother church of Selborne.
The manor-house, called “Temple,” is at present a single building, running in length from south to north, and has been occupied as a common farmhouse from time immemorial. The south end is modern, and consists of a brewhouse, and then a kitchen. The middle part is a hall twenty-seven feet in length, and nineteen feet in breadth; and has been formerly open to the top, but there is now a floor above it, and also a chimney in the western wall. The roofing consists of strong massive rafter-work ornamented with carved roses. I have often looked for the lamb and flag, the arms of the knights templars, without success; but in one corner found a fox with a goose on his back, so coarsely executed, that it required some attention to make out the device.
Beyond the hall to the north is a small parlour with a vast heavy stone chimney-piece, and at the end of all the chapel or oratory, whose massive thick walls and narrow windows at once bespeak great antiquity. This room is only sixteen feet by sixteen feet eight inches; and full seventeen feet nine inches in height. The ceiling is formed of vast joists, placed only five or six inches apart. Modern delicacy would not much approve of such a place of worship; for it has at present much more the appearance of a dungeon than of a room fit for the reception of people of condition. The field on which this oratory abuts is called Chapelfield. The situation of this house is very particular, for it stands upon the immediate verge of a steep abrupt hill.
Not many years since this place was used for a hop-kiln, and was divided into two stories by a loft, part of which remains at present, and makes it convenient for peat and turf, with which it is stowed.
LETTER X.
The Priory at times was much obliged to Gurdon and his family. As Sir Adam began to advance in years he found his mind influenced by the prevailing opinion of the reasonableness and efficacy of prayers for the dead; and therefore, in conjunction with his wife Constantia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and convent of Selborne all his right and claim to a certain place, placea, called “La Playstow,” in the village aforesaid, "in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam" This Pleystow,* locus ludorum, or playplace, is a level area near the church of about forty-four yards by thirty-six, and is known now by the name of the Plestor.†
It continues still, as it was in old times, to be the scene of recreation for the youths and children of the neighbourhood; and impresses an idea on the mind that this village, even in Saxon times, could not be the most abject of places, when the inhabitants
* In Saxon Plegestow, or Plegstow.
† At this juncture probably the vast oak was planted by the prior, as an ornament to his new acquired market-place. According to this supposition the oak was aged 432 years when blown down.
As soon as the prior became possessed of this piece of ground, he procured a charter for a market † from King Henry III., and began to erect houses and stalls, "seldas" around it. From this period Selborne became a market town; but how long it enjoyed that privilege does not appear. At the same time, Gurdon reserved to himself, and his heirs, a way through the said Plestor to a tenement and some crofts at the upper end, abutting on the south corner of the churchyard. This was in old days the manerial house of the street manor, though now a poor cottage, and is known at present by the modern name of Elliot’s. Sir Adam also did, for the health of his own soul and that of his wife Constantia, their predecessors and successors, grant to the prior and canons quiet possession of all the tenements and gardens, "curtillagia" which they had built and laid out on the lands in Selborne, on which he and his vassals, "homines" had undoubted right of common; and moreover did grant to the convent the full privilege of that right of common, and empowered the religious to build tenements and make gardens along the king’s highway in the village of Selborne.
From circumstances put together, it appears that the above were the first grants obtained by the Priory in the village of Selborne after it had subsisted about thirty-nine years; moreover, they explain the nature of the mixed manor still remaining in and about the village, where one field or tenement shall belong to Magdalen College in the University of Oxford, and the next to Norton Powlet, Esq., of Rotherfield House, and so down the whole street. The case was, that the whole was once the
* For more circumstances respecting the Plestor, see Letter II. to Mr. Pennant.
† Bishop Tanner, in his “Notitia Monastica” has made a mistake respecting the market and fair at Selborne; for in his references to Dodsworth, cart. 54 Hen. III., m. 3., he says, "De mercatu, et feria de Seleburn.” But this reference is wrong; for, instead of Seleburn, it proves that the place there meant was Lekeborne, or Legeborne, in the county of Lincoln. This error was copied from the index of the Cat. MSS. Angl. It does not appear that there ever was a chartered fair at Selborne. For several particulars respecting the present fair at Selborne, see Letter XXVI. of these Antiquities.
The year after Gurdon had bestowed the Plestor on the Priory, viz., in 1272, Henry III., King of England, died, and was succeeded by his son Edward. This magnanimous prince continued his regard for Sir Adam, whom he esteemed as a brave man, and made him warden, "custos" of the forest of Wolmer.*
* Since the letters respecting Wolmer-forest and Ayles-holt were printed, the author has been favoured with the following extracts:—
“In the ‘Act of Resumption, I Hen. VII.’ it was provided, that it be not prejudicial to ‘Harry at Lode,’ ranger of our forest of Wolmere, to him by oure letters patents before tyme gevyn.” Rolls of Parl., vol. vi. p. 370.
“In the II Hen. VII., 1495, ‘Warlham (Wardleham) and the office of forest (forester) of Wolmere,’ were held by Edmund, duke of Suffolk.” -Rolls, ib. 474.
“Act of general pardon, 14 Hen. VIII., 1523, not to extend to ‘Rich. Bp. of Wynton (bishop Fox) for any seizure or forfeiture of liberties, &c., within the forest of Wolmer, Alysholt, and Newe Forest; nor to any person for waste, &c., within the manor of Wardlam, or parish of Wardlam (Wardleham); nor to abusing, &c., of any office or fee, within the said forests of Wolmer or Alysholt, or the said park of Wardlam.'"—County Suth’t.—Rolls prefixt to 1st Vol. of Journals of the Lords, p. xciii. b.
To these may be added some other particulars, taken from a book lately published, entitled “An Account of all the Manors, Messuages, lands, &c., in the different Counties of England and Wales, held by Lease from the Crown, as contained in the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Stale and Condition of the Royal Forests, &c.” London, 1787.
“Southampton.
P. 64. “A fee-farm rent of £31 2'’s. 11'’d. out of the manors of East and
That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an outlaw and at the head of an army of insurgents, was for a considerable time in high rebellion against his sovereign, should have been guilty of some outrages, and should have committed some depredations, is by no means matter of wonder. Accordingly we find a distringas against him, ordering him to restore to the Bishop of Winchester some of the temporalities of that see, which he had taken by violence and detained, viz., some lands in Hocheleye, and a mill.† By a breve, or writ, from the king, he is also enjoined
West Wardleham; and also the office of lieutenant or keeper of the forest or chase of Aliceholt and Wolmer, with all offices, fees, commodities, and privileges thereto belonging.
- “Names of lessees, William, earl of Dartmouth, and others (in trust).
- “Date of the last lease, March 23rd, 1780; granted for such term as would fill up the subsisting term to 31 years.
- “Expiration March 23, 1811.
- “Southampton.
- “Hundreds—Selborne and Finchdeane.
- “Honours and manors, etc.
- “Aliceholt forest, three parks there.
- “Bensted and Kingsley; a petition of the parishioners concerning the three parks in Aliceholt Forest.”
- “William, first earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the present Lord Stawel, was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer before brigadier-general Emanuel Scroope Howe.”
* See Letter II. of these Antiquities.
† Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne, and has a mil lat this day. to readmit the Bishop of Winchester, and his tenants of the parish and town of Farnham, to pasture their horses, and other larger cattle, "averia," in the forest of Wolmer, as had been the usage from time immemorial. This writ is dated in the tenth year of the reign of Edward, viz., 1282.
All the king’s writs directed to Gurdon are addressed in the following manner, “Edwardus Dei gratia, &c., dilecto et fideli suo Ade Gurdon salutem;” and again, “Custodi foreste sue de Wolvemere.”
In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an English and a Norman ship about some trifle, brought on by degrees such serious consequences, that in 1293 a war broke out between the two nations. The French king, Philip the Hardy, gained some advantages in Gascony; and, not content with those, threatened England with an invasion, and by a sudden attempt took and burnt Dover.
Upon this emergency, Edward sent a writ to Gurdon, ordering him and four others to enlist three thousand soldiers in the counties of Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire, able-bodied men, “tam sagittare quam balistare potentes;” and to see that they were marched by the feast of All Saints, to Winchelsea, there to be embarked aboard the king’s transports.
The occasion of this armament appears also from a summons to the Bishop of Winchester to Parliament, part of which I shall transcribe on account of the insolent menace which is said therein to have been denounced against the English language:—“qualiter rex Franciae de terra nostra Gascon nos fraudulenter et cautelose decepit, eam nobis nequiter detinendo.. . . . . . . . . . vero predictis fraude et nequitia non contentus, ad expugnationem regni nostri classe maxima et bellatorum copiosa multitudine congregatis, cum quibus regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam invasurus, linguam Anglicam si concepte iniquitatis proposito detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus avertat omnino de terra delere proponit" Dated 3oth September, in the year of King Edward’s reign xxiii.*
* Reg. Winton, Stratford, but query Stratford; for Stratford was not bishop of Winton till 1323, near thirty years afterwards.
The above are the last traces that I can discover of Gurdon’s appearing and acting in public. The first notice that my evidences give of him is that in 1232, being the 16th of Henry III., he was the King’s bailiff, with others, for the town of Alton. Now, from 1232 to 1295 is a space of sixty-three years, a long period for one man to be employed in active life! Should any one doubt whether all these particulars can relate to one and the same person, I should wish him to attend to the following reasons why they might. In the first place, the documents from the priory mention but one Sir Adam Gurdon, who had no son lawfully begotten; and in the next, we are to recollect that he must have probably been a man of uncommon vigour, both of mind and body, since no one unsupported by such accomplishments could have engaged in such adventures, or could have borne up against the difficulties which he sometimes must have encountered; and moreover, we have modern instances of persons that have maintained their abilities for near that period.
Were we to suppose Gurdon to be only twenty years of age in 1232, in 1295 he would be eighty-three; after which advanced period it could not be expected that he should live long. From the silence, therefore, of my evidences, it seems probable that this extraordinary person finished his life in peace, not long after, at his mansion of Temple. Gurdon’s seal had for its device a man, with a helmet on his head, drawing a cross-bow; the legend, "Sigillum Ade de Gurdon," his arms were, “Goulis, iii floures argent issant de testes de leopards.”[1]
If the stout and unsubmitting spirit of Gurdon could be so much influenced by the belief and superstition of the times, much more might the hearts of his ladies and daughter. And accordingly we find that Ameria, by the consent and advice of her sons, though said to be all under age, makes a grant for ever of some lands down by the stream at Durton; and also of her right of the common of Durton itself.[2] Johanna, the daughter and heiress of Sir Adam, was married, I find, to Richard Achard; she also grants to the prior and convent lands and tenements in the village of Selborne, which her father obtained from Thomas Makerel; and also all her goods and chattels in Selborne for the consideration of two hundred pounds sterling. This last business was transacted in the first year of Edward II., viz., 1307. It has been observed before that Gurdon had a natural son; this person was called by the name of John Dastard, alias Wastard, but more probably Bastard; since bastardy, in those days, was not deemed any disgrace, though dastardy was esteemed the greatest. He was married to Gunnorie Duncun; and had a tenement and some land granted him in Selborne by his sister Johanna.
LETTER XI.
The Knights Templars,* who have been mentioned in a former
The Military Orders of the Religious.
The Knights Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called Knights of Rhodes, now of Malta, came into England about the year 1100, I Hen. I.
The Knights Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen’s reign, which commenced 1135. The order was dissolved in 1312, and their estates given by Act of Parliament to the Hospitalars in 1323 (all in Edw. II.) though many of their estates were never actually enjoyed by the said Hospitalars. Vid. Tanner, p. 24, 10.
The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars, were each subordinate to the principal house of their respective religion in London. Although these are the different denominations, which “Tanner” at p. 37 assigns to the cells of these different orders, yet throughout the work very frequent instances occur of preceptories attributed to the Hospitalars; and if in some passages of “Notitia Monast.” commandries are attributed to the Templars, it is only where the place afterwards became the property of the Hospitalars, and so is there indifferently styled preceptory or commandry; see p. 243, 263, 276, 577, 678. But, to account for the first observed inaccuracy, it is probable the preceptories of the Templars, when given to the Hospitalars, were still vulgarly, however, called by their old name of preceptories; whereas in propriety societies of the Hospitalars were indeed (as has been said) commandaries. And such deviation from the strictness of expression in this case might occasion those societies of Hospitalars also to be indifferently called
It has been usual for the religious of different orders to fall into great dissensions, and especially when they were near neighbours. Instances of this sort we have heard of between the monks of Canterbury; and again between the old abbey of St. Swythun,
preceptories, which had originally been vested in them, having never belonged to the Templars at all.—See in Archer, p. 609; Tanner, p. 300, col. I, 720, n.e.
It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hospitalars holds the same language; for there, in the enumeration of particulars occur “commandries, preceptories.”—CODEX, p. 1190. Now this intercommunity of names, and that in an Act of Parliament too, made some of our ablest antiquaries look upon a preceptory and commandry as strictly synonymous; accordingly we find Camden, in his “Britannia,” explaining præceptoria in the text by a commandry in the margin, p. 356. 510.—J. L.
Commandry, a manor or chief messuage with lands, etc., belonging to the priory of St. John of Jerusalem; and he who had the government of such house was called the commander, who could not dispose of it but to the use of the priory, only taking thence his own sustenance, according to his degree, who was usually a brother of the same priory.—Cowell. He adds (confounding these with preceptories) they are in many places termed temples, as Temple Bruere in Lincolnshire, etc. Præceptories were possessed by the more eminent sort of Templars, whom the chief master created and called Præceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to Stephens De Jurisd. lib. iv. c. 10, no. 27.
Placita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de Roff et sociis suis justic. Itiner. apud Wynton, &c., anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo.—“et Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emendasse panis et suis [cerevisiæ] in Sodington, et nescint q°. war. et—et magist. Milicie Templi non ven id distr.”—Chapter House, Westminster.
My papers mention three transactions, the exact time of which cannot be ascertained, because they fell out before dates were usually inserted; though probably they happened about the middle of the thirteenth century, not long after Saunford became master. The first of these is that the Templars shall pay to the priory of Selborne, annually, the sum of ten shillings at two half-yearly payments from their chamber, “camera,” at Sudington, “per
* NOTITIA MONASTICA, p. 155.
“Winchester, Newminster. King Alfred founded here first only a house and chapel for the learned monk Grimbald, whom he had brought out of Flanders; but afterwards projected, and by his will ordered, a noble Church or religious house to be built in the cemetery on the north side of the old minster or cathedral, and designed that Grimbald should preside over it. This was begun A.D. 901, and finished to the honour of the Holy Trinity, Virgin Mary, and St. Peter, by his son King Edward, who placed therein secular canons, but A.D. 963 they were expelled, and an abbot and monks put in possession by bishop Ethelwold.
“Now the churches and habitations of these two societies being so very near together, the differences which were occasioned by their singing, bells, and other matters, arose to so great a height, that the religious of the new monastery thought fit, about A.D. 1119, to remove to a better and more quiet situation without the walls, on the north part of the city called Hyde, where King Edward I., at the instance of Will. Gifford, Bishop of Winton, founded a stately abbey for them. St. Peter was generally accounted patron; though it is sometimes called the monastery of St. Grimbald, and sometimes of St. Barnabas,” etc.
NOTE.—A few years since a county bridewell, or house of correction, has been built on the immediate site of Hyde Abbey. In digging up the old foundations the workmen found the head of a crosier in good preservation.
† Robert Saunforde was Master of the Temple in 1241; Guido de Foresta was the next in 1292. The former is fifth in a list of the masters, in a MS. “Bib. Cotton. Nero. E. VI.”
The third transaction (though for want of dates we cannot say which happened first and which last) was a grant from Robert Samford to the priory of a tenement and its appurtenances in the village of Selborne, given to the Templars by Americus de Vasci*. This property, by the manner of describing it,—“totum tenementum cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, & hominibus, in pratis & pascuis, & nemoribus,” etc., seems to have, been no inconsiderable purchase, and was sold for two hundred marks sterling, to be applied for the buying of more land for the support of the holy war.
Prior John is mentioned as the person to whom Vasci’s land is conveyed. But in Willis’s list there is no Prior John till 1339, several years after the dissolution of the order of the Templars in 1312, so that, unless Willis is wrong, and has omitted a prior John since 1262 (that being the date of his first prior), these transactions must have fallen out before that date.
I find not the least traces of any concerns between Gurdon and the Knight Templars; but probably after his death his daughter Johanna might have, and might bestow, Temple on that order in support of the holy land; and, moreover, she seems to have been removing from Selborne, when she sold her goods and chattels to the priory, as mentioned above.
Temple, no doubt, did belong to the knights, as may be
* Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had been probably a soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon’s captains. Americus Vespucio, the person who gave name to the new world, was a Florentine.
Antiquaries have been much puzzled about the terms preceptores and preceptorium, not being able to determine what officer or edifice was meant. But perhaps all the while the passage quoted above from one of my papers, “per manum preceptoris vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore fuerit, ibidem,” may help to explain the difficulty. For if it be allowed here that preceptor and ballivus are synonymous words, then the brother who took on him that office resided in the house of the Templars at Sudington, a preceptory; where he was their preceptor, superintended their affairs, received their money, and, as in the instance there mentioned, paid from their chamber, "camera" as directed; so that, according to this explanation, a preceptor was no other than a steward, and a preceptorium was his residence. I am well aware that, according to strict Latin, the vel should have been seu or sive, and the order of the words "preceptoris nostri, vel ballivi, qui”—et "ibidem" should have been ibi; ibidem necessarily having reference to two or more persons; but it will hardly be thought fair to apply the niceties of classic rules to the Latinity of the thirteenth century, the writers of which seem to have aimed at nothing farther than to render themselves intelligible.
There is another remark that we have made, which, I think, corroborates what has been advanced; and that is, that Richard Carpenter, preceptor of Sudington, at the time of the transactions between the Templars and Selborne Priory, did always sign last as a witness in the three deeds; he calls himself frater, it is true, among many other brothers, but subscribes with a kind of deference, as if, for the time being, his office rendered him an inferior in the community.*
* In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald’s Hospital in the city of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, pp. 227, 228, of his collections for the history of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and preceptoria signify the mastership of the said hospital: ad preceptorium sive magisterium presentavit
LETTER XII.
The ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon were not the only benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne; for, in the year 1281, Ela Longspee obtained masses to be performed for her soul’s health; and the prior entered into an engagement that one of the convent should every day say a special mass for ever for the said benefactress, whether living or dead. She also engaged within five years to pay to the said convent one hundred marks of silver for the support of a chantry and chantry chaplain, who should perform his masses daily in the parish church of Selborne.* In the east end of the south aisle there are two sharp-pointed Gothic niches; one of these probably was the place under which these masses were performed; and there is the more reason to suppose as much, because, till within these thirty years, this space was fenced off with Gothic wooden railing, and was known by the name of the south chancel,†
—preceptorii sive magisterii patronas. Vacavit dicta preceptoria seu magisterium—ad preceptoriam et regimen dicti hospitalis—Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus.
Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably mean the master’s lodgings, or at least the preceptor’s apartment, whatsoever may have been the office or employment of the said preceptor.
A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis, or History of Leeds, p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and chaplain before dates were inserted.—Du Fresne’s Supplement: Preceptorise, prædia preceptoribus assignata. Cowel, in his Law Dictionary, enumerates sixteen preceptoriæ, or preceptories, in England; but Sudington is not among them.—It is remarkable that Gurtlerus, in his Historia Templariorum, Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the words preceptor or preceptorium.
* A chantry was a chapel joined to some cathedral or parish church, and endowed with annual revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests to sing mass daily for the soul of the founder, and others.
† For what is said more respecting this chantry see Letter III. of these Antiquities.—Mention is made of a Nicholas Langrish, capellanus de Selborne, in the time of Henry VIII. Was he chantry-chaplain to Ela Longspee, whose masses were probably continued to the time of the Reformation? More will be said of this person hereafter.
The solicitude expressed by the donor plainly shows her piety and firm persuasion of the efficacy of prayers for the dead; for she seems to have made every provision for the payment of the sum stipulated within the appointed time, and to have felt much anxiety lest her death, or the neglect of her executors or assigns, might frustrate her intentions.—“Et si contingat me in solucione perdicte pecunie annis predictis in parte aut in toto deficere, quod absit; concede et obligo pro me et assignatis meis, quod Vice-Comes . . . Oxon et . . . . . . qui pro tempore fuerint, per omnes terras et tenementa, et omnia bona mea mobilia et immobilia ubicunque in balliva sua fuerint inventa ad solucionem predictam faciendam possent nos compellere.” And again—“Et si contingat dictos religiosos labores seu expensas facere circa predictam pecuniam, seu circa partem dicte pecunie; volo quod dictorum religiosorum impense et labores levantur ita quod predicto priori vel uni canonicorum suorum superhiis simplici verbo credatur sine alterius honere probacionis; et quod utrique predictorum virorum in unam marcam argenti pro cujuslibet distrincione super me facienda tenear.—Dat. apud Wareborn die sabati proxima ante festum St. Marci evangeliste, anno regni regis Edwardi tertio decimo.”*
But the reader, perhaps, would wish to be better informed respecting this benefactress, of whom as yet he has heard no particulars.
The Ela Longspee, therefore, above-mentioned, was a lady of high birth and rank, and became countess to Thomas de Newburgh, the sixth earl of Warwick: she was the second daughter of the famous Ela Longspee, Countess of Salisbury, by William Longspee, natural son of King Edward II., by Rosamond.
Our lady, following the steps of her illustrious mother,† “was a
* Ancient deeds are often dated on a Sunday, having been executed in churches and churchyards for the sake of notoriety, and for the conveniency of procuring several witnesses to attest.
† Ela Longspee, Countess of Salisbury, in 1232, founded a monastery at Lacock, in the county of Wilts, and also another at Hendon, in the county of Somerset, in her widowhood, to the honour of the Blessed Virgin and St. Bernard.—Camden.
LETTER XIII.
THE reader is here presented with the titles of five forms respecting the choosing of a prior. “Charta petens licentiam elegendi prelatum a Domino episcopo Wintoniensi: "—“Forma licentie concesse:”—" Forma decreti post electionem conficiendi:”—108.“Modus procedendi ad electionem per formam scrutinii:”—et “Forma ricte presentandi electum.” Such evidences are rare and curious, and throw great light upon the general monastico-ecdesiastical history of this kingdom, not yet sufficiently understood.
In the year 1324 there was an election for a prior at Selborne; when some difficulties occurring, and a devolution taking place, application was made to Stratford, who was bishop of Winchester at that time, and of course the visitor and patron of the convent at the spot above-mentioned.†
An Extract from “Reg. Stratford.” Winton.
P. 4. “Commissio facta sub-priori de Selebourne,” by the bishop enjoining him to preserve the discipline of the order in the convent during the vacancy made by the late death of the prior, (“nuper pastoris solatio destituta,”) dated 4th kal. Maii. ann. 2do sc. of his consecration. [Sc. 1324.]
* Thus she survived the foundation of her chantry at Selborne fifteen years. About this lady and her mother consult Dugdale’s “Baronage,” i. 7 2 > J 75 177; Dugdale’s “Warwickshire,” i. 383; Leland’s “Itin.” ii. 45.
† Stratford was Bishop of Winchester from 1323 to 1333, when he was translated to Canterbury.
P. 6. “Custodia Prioratus de Seleburne vacantis,” committed by the bishop to Nicholas de la —————, a layman, it belonging to the bishop, “ratione vacationis ejusdem,” in July, 1324, ibid. “negotium electionis de Selebourne. Acta coram Johanne Episcopo, &c. 1324 in negotio electionis de fratre Waltero de Insula concanonico prioratus de Selebourne,” lately elected by the subprior and convent, by way of scrutiny; that it appeared to the bishop, by certificate from the dean of Alton, that solemn citation and proclamation had been made in the church of the convent where the election was held that any who opposed the said election or elected should appear. Some difficulties were started, which the bishop overruled, and confirmed the election, and admitted the new prior sub hac forma:—
“In Dei nomine Amen. Ego Johannes permissione divina, &c. te Walterum de Insula ecclesie de Selebourne nostre dioceseos nostrique patronatus vacantis, canonicum et cantorem, virum utique providum, et discretum, literarum scientia preditum, vita moribus et conversatione merito commendatum, in ordine sacerdotali et etate legitima constitutum, de legitimo matrimonio procreatum, in ordine et religione Sancti Augustini de Selebourne expresse professum, in spiritualibus et temporalibus circumspectum, jure nobis hac devoluto in hac parte, in dicte ecclesie de Selebourne perfectum priorem; curam et administrationem ejusdem tibi in spiritualibus et temporalibus committentes. Dat. apud Selebourne XIII. kalend. Augusti anno supradicto.”
There follows an order to the sub-prior and convent pro obedientia:
A mandate to Nicholas above-named to release the priory to the new prior:
A mandate for the induction of the new prior.
LETTER XIV.
“In the year 1373 Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, held a visitation of his whole diocese; not only of the secular clergy through the several deaneries, but also of the monasteries, and religious houses of all sorts, which he visited in person. The next year he sent his commissioners with power to correct and reform the several irregularities and abuses which he had discovered in the course of his visitation.
“Some years afterward, the bishop having visited three several times all the religious houses throughout his diocese, and being well informed of the state and condition of each, and of the particular abuses which required correction and reformation, besides the orders which he had already given, and the remedies which he had occasionally applied by his commissioners, now issued his injunctions to each of them. They were accommodated to their several exigencies, and intended to correct the abuses introduced, and to recall them all to a strict observation of the rules of their respective orders. Many of these injunctions are still extant, and are evident monuments of the care and attention with which he discharged this part of his episcopal duty.”*
Some of these injunctions I shall here produce; and they are such as will not fail, I think, to give satisfaction to the antiquary, both as never having been published before, and as they are a curious picture of monastic irregularities at that time.
The documents that I allude to are contained in the “Notabilis Visitatio de Seleburne,” held at the priory of that place, by Wykeham in person, in the year 1387.
This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins of parchment; the one large, and the other smaller, and consists of a preamble, thirty-six items, and a conclusion, which altogether evince the patient investigation of the visitor, for which he had always been so remarkable in all matters of moment, and how much he had at heart the regularity of those institutions, of whose efficacy in their prayers for the dead he was so firmly persuaded. As the bishop
* See Lowth’s Life of Wykeham.
The visitatio is of considerable length, and cannot be introduced into the body of this work; we shall therefore refer the reader to the Appendix, where he will find every particular, while we shall take some notice, and make some remarks on the most singular items as they occur.
In the preamble the visitor says—“Considering the charge lying upon us, that your blood may not be required at our hands, we came down to visit your priory, as our office required: and every time we repeated our visitation we found something still not only contrary to regular rules but also repugnant to religion and good reputation.”
In the first article after the preamble—“he commands them on their obedience, and on pain of the greater excommunication, to see that the canonical hours by night and by day be sung in their choir, and the masses of the Blessed Mary, and other accustomed masses, be celebrated at the proper hours with devotion, and at moderate pauses; and that it be not allowed to any to absent themselves from the hours and masses, or to withdraw before they are finished.”
Item 2nd. He enjoins them to observe that silence to which they are so strictly bound by the rule of Saint Augustine at stated times, and wholly to abstain from frivolous conversation.
Item 4th. “Not to permit such frequent passing of secular people of both sexes through their convent, as if a thoroughfare, from whence many disorders may and have arisen.”
* Letters of this sort from Dr. Layton to Thomas Lord Cromwell are still extant.
Item 5th. “To take care that the doors of their church and priory be so attended to that no suspected and disorderly females, ‘suspectæ et aliæ inhonestæ,’ pass through their choir and cloister in the dark; “and to see that the doors of their church between the nave and the choir, and the gates of their cloister opening into the fields, be constantly kept shut until their first choir service is over in the morning, at dinner time, and when they meet at their evening collation.*
Item 6th mentions that several of the canons are found to be very ignorant and illiterate, and enjoins the prior to see that they be better instructed by a proper master.
Item 8th. The canons are here accused of refusing to accept of their statutable clothing year by year, and of demanding a certain specified sum of money, as if it were their annual rent and due. This the bishop forbids, and orders that the canons shall 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 Augustine.
In Item 9th is a complaint that some of the canons are given to wander out of the precincts of the convent without leave; and that others ride to their manors and farms, under pretence of inspecting the concerns of the society, when they please, and stay as long as they please. But they are enjoined never to stir either about their own private concerns or the business of the convent without leave from the prior: and no canon is to go alone, but to have a brave brother to accompany him.
The injunction in Item 10th, at this distance of time appears rather ludicrous; but the visitor seems to be very serious on the occasion, and says that it has been evidently proved to him that some of the canons, living dissolutely after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep naked in their beds without their breeches and shirts, “absque femoralibus et camisiis.”† He enjoins that these
* A collation was a meal or repast on a fast-day in lieu of a supper.
† The rule alluded to in Item 10th, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined the Knights Templars, who were also subject to the rules of St. Augustine. See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum.
In Item 11th the good bishop is very wroth with some of the canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and sportsmen, keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting-matches. These pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipation, danger to the soul and body, and frequent expense; he, therefore, wishing to extirpate this vice wholly from the convent, "radicibus extirpare" does absolutely enjoin the canons never intentionally to be present at any public noisy tumultuous huntings; or to keep any hounds, by themselves or by others, openly or by stealth, within the convent, or without.*
In Item 12th he forbids the canons in office to make their business a plea for not attending the service of the choir; since by these means either divine worship is neglected or their brother canons are over-burdened.
By Item 14th we are informed that the original number of canons at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen; but that at this visitation they were found to be let down to eleven. The visitor therefore strongly and earnestly enjoins them that, with all due speed and diligence, they should proceed to the election of proper persons to fill up the vacancies, under pain of the greater excommunication.
In Item 17th the prior and canons are accused of suffering, through neglect, notorious dilapidations to take place among their manorial houses and tenements, and in the walls and inclosures of the convent itself, to the shame and scandal of the institution; they are therefore enjoined, under pain of suspension, to repair all defects within the space of six months.
* Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the pleasures of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Canterbury should languish after hunting, when from their situation so near the precincts of Wolmer Forest, the king’s hounds must have been often in hearing, and sometimes in sight from their windows. If the bishop was so offended at these sporting canons, what would he have said to our modern fox-hunting divines
Item 18th charges them with grievously burthening the said Priory by means ot sales, and grants ot liveries* and corrodies.†
The bishop, in Item 19th, accuses the canons of neglect and omission with respect to their perpetual chantry-services.
Item 20th. The visitor here conjures the prior and canons not to withhold their original alms, "eleemosynas;" nor those that they were enjoined to distribute for the good of the souls of founders and benefactors; he also strictly orders that the fragments and broken victuals, both from the hall of their prior and their common refectory, should be carefully collected together by their eleemosynarius, and given to the poor without any diminution; the officer to be suspended for neglect or omission.
Item 23rd. He bids them distribute their pittances, "pitancias"‡ regularly on obits, anniversaries, festivals, etc.
Item 25th. All and every one of the canons are hereby inhibited from standing godfather to any boy for the future, "ne compatres alicujus pueri de cetero fieri presumatis,” unless by express license from the bishop obtained; because from such relationship favour and affection, nepotism, and undue influence, arise, to the injury and detriment of religious institutions.§
* “Liberationes, or liberaturæ, allowances of corn, etc., to servants delivered at certain times, and in certain quantities, as clothes were among the allowances from religious houses to their dependents. See the corrodies granted by Croyland Abbey.—Hist, of Croyland, Appendix No. XXXIV.
“It is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be confined to the uniform of the retainers or servants of the great, who were hence called livery servants.”—Sir John Cullum’S Hist. of Hawsted.
† A corrody is an allowance to a servant living in an abbey or priory.
‡ Pitancia, an allowance of bread and beer, or other provision to any pious use, “especially to the religious in a monastery, &c., for augmentation of their commons.”—Gloss, to Kennet’s Par. Ant.
§ The relationship between sponsors and their god-children, who were called spiritual sons and daughters, was formerly esteemed much more sacred than at present. The presents at christenings were sometimes very considerable: the connexion lasted through life, and was closed with a legacy. This last mark of attention seems to have been thought almost indispensable: for, in a will from whence no extracts have been given, the testator left every one of his god-children a bushel of barley.”—Sir John Cullum’s Hist. of Hawsted.
“De Margaretæ filiæ regis primogenitæ, quam filiolam, quia ejus in
Item 26th. The visitor herein severely reprimands the canons for appearing publicly in what would be called in the universities an unstatutable manner, and for wearing of boots, “caligæ de Burneto, et sotularium———in ocrearum loco, ad modum sotularium.”*
It is remarkable that the bishop expresses more warmth against this than any other irregularity; and strictly enjoins them, under pain of ecclesiastical censures, and even imprisonment if necessary (a threat not made use of before), for the future to wear boots, “ocreis seu botis,” according to the regular usage of their ancient order.
Item 29th. He here again, but with less earnestness, forbids them foppish ornaments, and the affectation of appearing like beaux with garments edged with costly furs, with fringed gloves, and silken girdles trimmed with gold and silver. It is remarkable that no punishment is annexed to this injunction.
Item 31st. He here singly and severally forbids each canon not admitted to a cure of souls to administer extreme unction, or the sacrament, to clergy or laity; or to perform the service of matrimony, till he has taken out the license of the parish priest.
Item 32nd. The bishop says in this item that he had observed and found, in his several visitations, that the sacramental plate and cloths of the altar, surplices, etc., were sometimes left in such an uncleanly and disgusting condition as to make the beholders shudder with horror:—“Quod aliquibus sunt horrori:”† he
baptismo compater fuit, appellat, cyphum aureum et quadraginta libras, legavit.—Archbishop Parker de Antiquitate Eccles. Brit. speaking of Archbishop Morton.
* De Fresne is copious on caligæ of several sorts, Hoc item de Clericis, presertim beneficiatis: caligis scacatis (chequered) rubeis, et viridibus publice utentibus dicimus esse censendum.—Statut. Eccles. Tutel. The chequered boots seem to be the highland plaid stockings.—Burnetum, i.e. Brunetum, pannus non ex lanâ nativi coloris confectus.—Sotularium, i.e., subtalaris, quia sub talo est. Peculium genus, quibus maxime Monachi nocte utebantur in æstate; in hyeme vero Soccis.
This writer gives many quotations concerning Sotularia, which were not to be made too shapely; nor were the caligæ to be laced on too nicely.
† Men abhorred the offering of the Lord.—I Sam. ii. 17. Strange as this account may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when first in orders,
Item 33rd says that, though the relics of saints, the plate, holy vestments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by canonical institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn; yet, as the visitor finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he therefore strictly enjoins the prior forthwith to recall those pledges, and to restore them to the convent; and orders that all the papers and title-deeds thereto belonging should be safely deposited, and kept under three locks and keys.
In the course of the “Visitatio Notabilis” the constitutions of Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was afterwards Pope Adrian V., and died in 1276. His constitutions are in “Lyndewood’s Provinciale,” and were drawn up in the 52nd of Henry III.
In the “Visitatio Notabilis” the usual punishment is fasting on bread and beer; and in cases of repeated delinquency on bread and water. On these occasions quarta feria, et sexta feria, are mentioned often, and are to be understood of the days of the week numerically on which such punishment is to be inflicted.
twice met with similar circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches belonging to two obscure villages. In the first he found the inside of the chalice covered with birds’ dung; and in the other the communion-cloth soiled with cabbage and the greasy drippings of a gammon of bacon. The good dame at the great farm-house, who was to furnish the cloth, being a notable woman, thought it best to save her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered her own table for two or three Sundays before.
* ——ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa
Corruget nares: ne non et cantharus, et lanx
Ostendat tibi te.”
LETTER XV.
Though Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid in his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he was on the whole a liberal friend and benefactor to that convent, which, like every society or individual that fell in his way, partook of the generosity and benevolence of that munificent prelate.
“In the year 1377 William of Wykeham, out of his mere good will and liberality, discharged the whole debts of the prior and convent of Selborne, to the amount of one hundred and ten marks eleven shillings and sixpence;* and, a few years before he died, he made a free gift of one hundred marks to the same priory: on which account the prior and convent voluntarily engaged for the celebration of two masses a day by two canons of the convent for ten years, for the bishop’s welfare, if he should live so long; and for his soul if he should die before the expiration of this term.”†
At this distance of time it seems matter of great wonder to us how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose members were exempt by their very institution from every means of personal and family expense, could possibly run in debt without squandering their revenues in a manner incompatible with their function.
Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in their revenues by fires among their buildings or large dilapidations from storms, etc.; but no such accident appears to have befallen the priory at Selborne. Those situate on public roads, or in great towns where there were shrines of saints, were liable to be intruded on by travellers, devotees, and pilgrims; and were subject to the importunity of the poor, who swarmed at their gates to partake of doles and broken victuals. Of these disadvantages some convents used to complain, and especially those at Canterbury; but this priory, from its sequestered situation, could seldom be subject to either of these inconveniences, and therefore we
* Yet in ten years’ time we find, by the “Notabilis Visitatio,” that all their relics, plate, vestments, title-deeds, etc., were in pawn.
† Lowth’s Life of Wykeham.
LETTER XVI.
BEaufort was bishop of Winchester from 1405 to 1447; and yet, notwithstanding this long episcopate, only torn. i. of “Beaufort’s Register” is to be found. This loss is much to be regretted, as it must unavoidably make a gap in the history of Selborne Priory, and perhaps in the list of its priors.
In 1410 there was an election for a prior, and again in 1411.
In vol. i., p. 24, of “Beaufort’s Register,” is the instrument of the election of John Wynchestre to be prior—the substance as follows:—
Richard Elstede, senior canon, signifies to the bishop that brother Thomas Weston, the late prior, died October 18th, 1410, and was buried November 11th. That the bishop’s license to elect having been obtained he and the whole convent met in the chapter-house, on the same day about the hour of vespers, to consider of the election; that brother John Wynchestre, then subprior, with the general consent, appointed the 12th November, ad horam ejusdem diei capitularem, for the business; when they met in the chapter-house, post missam de sancto Spiritu, solemnly celebrated in the church;—to wit, Richard Elstede, Thomas Halyborne, John Lemyngton, sacrista; John Stepe, cantor; Walter Ffarnham, Richard Putworth, celerarius; Hugh London, Henry Brampton, alias Brompton; John Wynchestre, senior, John Wynchestre, junior; then “Proposito primitis verbo Dei,” and then ympno “Veni Creator Spiritus” being solemnly sung, cum “versiculo et oratione,” as usual, and his letter of license, with the appointment of the hour and place of election being read, alta voce, in valvis of the chapter-house; John Wynchestre, senior, the sub-prior, in his own behalf and that of all the canons, and by their mandate, “quasdam monicionem et protestacionem in scriptis redactas fecit, legit, interposuit”—that all persons disqualified, or not having right to be present, should immediately withdraw, and protesting against their voting, etc.; that then having read the constitution of the general council “Quia propter,” and explained the modes of proceeding to election, they agreed unanimously to proceed “per viam seu formam simplicis compromissi;” when John Wynchestre, sub-prior, and all the others (the commissaries undernamed excepted) named and chose brothers Richard Elstede, Thomas Halyborne, John Lemyngton, the sacrist, John Stepe, chantor, and Richard Putworth, canons, to be commissaries, who were sworn each to nominate and elect a fit person to be prior, and empowered by letters patent under the common seal, to be in force only until the darkness of the night of the same day; that they, or the greater part of them, should elect for the whole convent, within the limited time from their own number, or from the rest of the convent; that one of them should publish their consent in common before the clergy and people: they then all promised to receive as prior the person these five canons should fix on. These commissaries seceded from the chapter-house to the refectory of the Priory, and were shut in with Master John Penkester, bachelor of laws, and John Couke and John Lynne, perpetual vicars of the parish churches of Newton and Selborne, and with Sampson Maycock, a public notary, where they treated of the election; when they unanimously agreed on John Wynchestre, and appointed Thomas Halyborne to choose him in common for all, and to publish the election as customary, and returned long before it was dark to the chapter-house, where Thomas Halyborne read publicly the instrument of election; when all the brothers, the new prior excepted, singing solemnly the hymn “Te Deum laudamus,” fecerunt deportari novum electum, by some of the brothers from the chapter-house to the high altar of the church; * and the hymn being sung, dictisque versiculo et oratione consuetis in
- It seems here as if the canons used to chair their new elected prior from the chapter-house to the high altar of their Convent Church. In Letter XXI., on the same occasion it is said—et sic canentes dictum electum ad majus altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud nos moris est.
The bishop, January 6th, 1410, apud Esher in camera inferiori, declared the election duly made, and ordered the new prior to be inducted, for this the archdeacon of Winchester was written to; “stallumque in choro, et locum in capitulo juxta morem preteriti temporis,” to be assigned to him, and everything beside necessary to be done.
”Beaufort’s Register,” Vol. I.
P. 2. Taxatio spiritualis Decanatus de Aulton, Ecclesia de Selebourn, cum Capella, xxx marc. decima xlib. iii. fol. Vicaria de Selebourn non taxatur propter exilitatem.
P. 9. Taxatio bonorum temporalium religiosorum in Archidiac. Wynton.
Prior de Selebourn habet meneria de
| Bromdene taxat. ad ..... | xxx’s. ii d. | |
| Apud Schete ad ...... | xvii’s. | |
| P. Selebourne ad . . . . . . | vi lib. | |
| In civitate Wynton de reddit . . . . | vi lib. viii ob. | |
| Tannaria sua taxat ad . . . . | x lib. s. | |
| Summa tax. xxxviii lib. xiiii d. ob. inde decima. | vi lib. s. q. ob. |
LETTER XVII.
Information being sent to Rome respecting the havoc and spoil that was carrying on among the revenues and lands of the Priory of Selborne, as we may suppose by the Bishop of Winchester, its visitor, Pope Martin,* as soon as the news of these proceedings came before him, issued forth a bull, in which he enjoins his commissary immediately to revoke all the property that had been alienated.
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. i.
“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 conventus monasterii de Seleburn per Priorem soliti gubernari ordinis Sti. Augustini Winton, dioc. quam de predecessores eorum decimas, terras, redditus, domes, possessiones, vineas,‡ et quedam alia bona
* Pope Martin V. chosen about 1417. He attempted to reform the church, but died in 1431, just as he had summoned the Council of Basil.
† Should have been no doubt Southwick, a priory under Portsdown.
‡ Mr. Barrington is of opinion that anciently 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 Archæologia, vol. iii.
In the instance above, the Pope’s secretary might insert vineas merely because they were a species of cultivation familiar to him in Italy.
The conduct of the religious had now for some time been generally bad. Many of the monastic societies, being very opulent, were become voluptuous and licentious, and had deviated entirely from their original institutions. The laity saw with indignation 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 discipline drew on the monks and canons a heavy load of popular odium. Some good men there were who endeavoured to oppose the general delinquency; but their efforts were too feeble to stem the torrent of monastic luxury. As far back as the year 1381, Wickliffe’s principles and doctrines had made some progress, were well received by men who wished for a reformation, and were defended and maintained by them as long as they dared, till the bishops and clergy began to be so greatly alarmed, that they procured an act to be passed by which the secular arm was empowered to support the corrupt doctrines of the Church; but the first Lollard was not burnt until the year 1401.
The wits also of those times did not spare the gross morals of the clergy, but bodily ridiculed their ignorance and profligacy. The most remarkable of these were Chaucer, and his contemporary Robert Langelande, better known by the name of Piers Plowman. The laughable tales of the former are familiar to almost every reader; while the visions of the latter are but in few hands. With a quotation from the Passus Decimus of this writer I shall conclude my letter; not only on account of the remarkable prediction therein contained, which carries with it somewhat of the air of a prophecy; but also as it seems to have been a striking picture of monastic insolence and dissipation; and a specimen of one of the keenest pieces of satire now perhaps subsisting in any language, ancient or modern.
“Now is religion a rider, a romer by streate;
A leader of love-days, and a loud begger;
A pricker on a palfrey from maner to maner,
A heape of hounds at his arse, as he a lord were.
And but if his knave kneel, that shall his cope bring,
He loureth at him, and asketh him who taught him curtesie,
Little had lords to done, to give lands from her heirs,
To religious that have no ruth if it rain on her altars.
In many places ther they persons be, by himself at ease:
Of the poor have they no pity, and that is her charitie;
And they letten hem as lords, her lands lie so broad.
And there shal come a king,* and confess you religious;
And beate you, as the bible telleth, for breaking your rule,
And amend monials, and monks, and chanons,
And put hem to her penaunce ad pristinum statum ire."
*F. 1. a. “This prediction, although a probable conclusion concerning a king who after a time would suppress the religious houses, is remarkable. I imagined it might have been foisted into the copies in the reign of king Henry VIII., but it is to be found in MSS. of this poem, older than the year 1400.”—fol. 1. a. b.
“Again, where he, Piers Plowman, alludes to the Knights Templars, lately suppressed, he says,—
"———Men of holie kirk
Shall turn as Templars did; the tyme approacheth here."
“This I suppose, was a favourite doctrine in Wickliffe’s discourses.”—Warton’s Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 282.
LETTER XVIII.
William of Waynflete became bishop of Winchester in the year 1447, and seems to have pursued the generous plan of Wykeham in endeavouring to reform the priory of Selborne.
When Waynflete came to the see he found prior Stype, alias Stepe, still living, who had been elected as long ago as the year 1411.
Among my documents I find a curious paper of the things put into the custody of Peter Bernes the sacrist, and especially some relics: the title of this evidence is “No. 50, Indentura prioris de Selborne quorundam tradit Petro Bernes, sacrista ibidem, ann. Hen. VI . . . . . una cum confiss. ejusdem Petri script.” The occasion of this catalogue or list of effects, being drawn between the prior and sacrist does not appear, nor the date when; only that it happened in the reign of Hen. VI. This transaction probably took place when Bernes entered on his office; and there is the more reason to suppose that to be the case, because the list consists of vestments and implements, and relics, such as belonged to the church of the priory, and fell under the care of the sacrist. For the numerous items I shall refer the curious reader to the Appendix, and shall just mention the relics, although they are not all specified; and the state of the live stock of the monastery at that juncture.
“Item 2. osculator, argent.
“Item i. osculatorium cum osse digitt auricular.—Sti. Johannis Baptistæ*
" Item i. parvam crucem cum V. reliquiis.
* How the Convent came by the bone of the little finger of St. John the Baptist does not appear: probably the founder, while in Palestine, purchased it among the Asiatics, who were at that time great traders in relics. We know from the best authority that as soon as Herod had cruelly beheaded that holy man “his disciples came and took up the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus.”—Matt. iv. 12. Farther would be difficult to say.
“Item i. anulum argent, et deauratum St. Edmundi.*
“Item 2. osculat. de coper.
“Item 1. junctorium St. Ricardi.†
“Item 1. pecten St. Ricardi"‡
The staurum, or live stock, is quite ridiculous, consisting only of “2 vacce, 1 sus, 4 hoggett. et 4 porcell.” viz., two cows one sow, four porkers, and four pigs.
LETTER XIX.
Stepe died towards the end of the year 1453, as we may suppose pretty far advanced in life, having been prior forty-four years.
On the very day that the vacancy happened, viz., January 26th 1453-4, the sub-prior and convent petitioned the visitor—“vos unicum levam en nostrum, et spem unanimiter rogamus, quatinus eligendum ex nobis unum confratrem de gremio nostro, in nostra religione probatum et expertem, licenciam vestram paternalem cum plena libertate nobis concedere dignemini graciose.”—Reg. Waynflete, tom. I.
Instead of the license requested we find next a commission “custodie prioratus de Selebourne durante vacatione,” addressed to brother Peter Berne, canon-regular of the priory of Selebourne, and of the order of St. Augustine, appointing him keeper of the
* November 2Oth, in the calendar, Edmund king and Martyr, in the 9th century. See also a Sanctus Edmundus in Godwin, among the archbishops of Canterbury, in the 13th century; his surname Rich, in 1234.
t April 3rd, ibid. Richard Bishop of Chichester, in the 13th century, his surname De la Wich in 1245.
Junctorium, perhaps a joint or limb of St. Richard; but what particular joint the religious were not such osteologists as to specify. This barbarous word was not to be found in any dictionary consulted by the author.
‡ Pecten inter ministeria sacra recensetur, quo scil. sacerdotes ac clerici, antequam in ecclesiam procederent, crines pecterent. E quibus colligitur monachos, tunc temporis, non omnino tonsos fuisse.”—Du FRESNE.
The author remembers to have seen in great farm-houses a family comb chained to a post for the use of the hinds when they came in to their meals.
After this transaction it does not appear that the chapter of the Priory proceeded to any election; on the contrary, we find that at six months’ end from the vacancy the visitor declared that a lapse had taken place; and that therefore he did confer the priorship on canon Peter Berne—“Prioratum vacantem et ad nostram collationem, seu provisionem jure ad nos in hac parte per lapsum temporis legitime devoluto spectantem, tibi (sc. P. Berne) de legitimo matrimonio procreato, &c.,—conferimus,” etc. This deed bears date July 28th, 1454.—Reg. Waynflete, tom. I. p. 69.
On February 8th, 1462, the visitor issued out a power of sequestration against the priory of Selborne on account of notorious dilapidations, which threatened manifest ruin to the roofs, walls, and edifices, of the said convent; and appointing John Hammond, B.D., rector of the parish church of Hetlegh, John Hylling, vicar of the parish church of Newton Valence, and Walter Gorfin, inhabitant of the parish of Selborne, his sequestrators, to exact, collect, levy, and receive, all the profits and revenues of the said convent: he adds “ac ea sub arcto, et tuto custodiatis, custodirive faciatis;” as they would answer it to the bishop at their peril.
In consequence of these proceedings Prior Berne, on the last day of February, and the next year, produced a state of the revenues of the Priory, No. 381, called “A paper conteyning the value of the manors and lands pertayning to the Priory of Selborne, 4 Edward III., with a note of charges yssuing out of it.”
This is a curious document, and will appear in the Appendix. From circumstances in this paper it is plain that the sequestration produced good effects; for in it are to be found bills of repairs to a considerable amount.
By this evidence also it appears that there were at that juncture only four canons at the Priory;* and that these, and their four household servants, during this sequestration for their clothing, wages, and diet, were allowed per annum xxx lib.; and that the annual pension of the lord prior, reside where he would, was to be x lib.
In the year 1468, Prior Berne, probably wearied out by the dissensions and want of order that prevailed in the convent, resigned his priorship into the hands of the bishop.—Reg. Waynflete, tom. I., pars ima ., fol. 157.
March 28th, A.D. 1468. “In quadam alta camera juxta magnam portam manerii of the Bishop of Wynton de Waltham coram eodem rev. patre ibidem tunc sedente, Peter Berne, prior of Selborne, ipsum prioratum in sacras, et venerabiles manus of the bishop, viva voce libere resignavit: and his resignation was admitted before two witnesses and a notary-public. In consequence, March 29th, before the bishop, in capella manerii sui ante dicti pro tribunali sedente, comparuerunt fratres” Peter Berne, Thomas London, William Wyndesor, and William Paynell, alias Stretford, canons regular of the priory, “capitulum, et conventum ejusdem ecclesie facientes; ac jus et voces in electione futura prioris dicti prioratus solum et in solidum, ut asseruerunt, habentes;” and after the bishop had notified to them the vacancy of a prior, with his free license to elect, deliberated awhile, and then, by way of compromise, as they affirmed, unanimously transferred their right of election to the bishop before witnesses. In consequence of this the bishop, after full deliberation, proceeded, April 7th, “in capella manerii sui de Waltham,” to the election of a prior; “et fratrem Johannem Morton, priorem ecclesie conventualis de Reygate dicti ordinis Stf. Augustini Wynton. dioc. in priorem vice et nomine omnium et singulorum canonicorum predictorum elegit, in ordine sacerdotali, et etate licita constitutum, &c.” And on the same day, in the same place, and before the same witnesses, John Morton resigned to the bishop the priorship of Reygate viva voce. The bishop then required his consent to his own election: “qui licet
* If Bishop Wykeham was so disturbed (see “Notab. Visitatio”) to find the number of canons reduced from fourteen to eleven, what would he have said to have seen it diminished below one-third of that number?
Thus, for the first time, was a person, a stranger to the convent of Selborne, and never canon of that monastery, elected prior; though the style of the petitions in former elections used to run thus, “Vos - — - - rogamus quatinus eligendum ex nobis unum confratrem de gremio nostro,—licentiam vestram—nobis concedere dignemini.”
LETTER XX.
Prior Morton dying in 1401, two canons, by themselves, proceeded to election, and chose a prior; but two more (one of them Berne) complaining of not being summoned, objected to the proceedings as informal; till at last the matter was compromised that the bishop should again, for that turn, nominate as he had before. But the circumstances of this election will be best explained by the following extract:—
REG. WAYNFLETE, torn. II., pars ima., fol. 7.
Memorandum. A.D. 1471. August 22.
William Wyndesor, a canon-regular of the priory of Selborne, having been elected prior on the death of brother John, appeared in person before the bishop in his chapel at South Waltham. He was attended on this occasion by Thomas London and John Bromesgrove, canons, who had elected him. Peter Berne and William Stratfield, canons, also presented themselves at the same time, complaining that in this business they had been overlooked, and not summoned; and that therefore the validity of the election might with reason be called in question, and quarrels and dissensions might probably arise between the newly chosen prior and the parties thus neglected.
After some altercation and dispute they all came to an agreement with the new prior, that what had been done should be rejected and annulled; and that they would again, for this turn, transfer to the bishop their power to elect, order, and provide them another prior, whom they promised unanimously to admit.
The bishop accepted of this offer before witnesses: and on September 27th, in an inner chamber near the chapel above-mentioned, after full deliberation, chose brother Thomas Fairwise, vicar of Somborne, a canon-regular of Saint Augustine in the priory of Bruscough, in the diocese of Coventry and Litchfield, to be prior of Selborne. The form is nearly as above in the last election. The canons are again enumerated; W. Wyndesor, sub-prior, P. Berne, T. London, W. Stratfeld, J. Bromesgrove, who had formed the chapter, and had requested and obtained license to elect, but had unanimously conferred their power on the bishop. In consequence of this proceeding, the bishop taking the business upon himself, that the priory might not suffer detriment for want of a governor, appoints the aforesaid T. Fairwise to be prior. A citation was ordered as above for gainsayers to appear October 4th, before the bishop or his commissaries at South Waltham; but none appearing, the commissaries admitted the said Thomas, ordered him to be installed, and sent the usual letter to the convent to render him due obedience.
Thus did the bishop of Winchester a second time appoint a stranger to be prior of Selborne, instead of one chosen out of the chapter. For this seeming irregularity the visitor had no doubt good and sufficient reasons, as probably may appear hereafter.
LETTER XXI.
Whatever might have been the abilities and disposition of Prior Fairwise, it could not have been in his power to have brought about any material reformation in the priory of Selborne, because he departed this life in the month of August, 1472, before he had presided one twelvemonth.
As soon as their governor was buried the chapter applied to their visitor for leave to choose a new prior, which being granted, after deliberating for a time, they proceeded to an election by a scrutiny. But as this mode of voting has not been described but by the mere form in the Appendix, an extract from the bishop’s register, representing the manner more fully, may not be disagreeable to several readers.
Wayneflete Reg. tom. II. pars. ima., fol. 15.
“Reverendo, &c., ac nostro patrono graciosissimo vestri humiles, et devote obedientie filii,” etc.
To the right reverend Father in God, and our most gracious patron, we, your obedient and devoted sons, William Wyndesor, president of the chapter of the priory of Selborne, and the convent of that place, do make known to your lordship, that our priorship being lately vacant by the death of Thomas Fairwise, our late prior, who died August 11th, 1472, having committed his body to decent sepulture, and having requested, according to custom, leave to elect another, and having obtained it under your seal, we, William Wyndesor, president of the convent on the 29th August, in our chapter-house assembled, and making a chapter, taking to us in this business Richard ap Jenkyn, and Galfrid Bryan, chaplains, that our said priory might not by means of this vacancy incur harm or loss, unanimously agreed on August the last for the day of election; on which day, having first celebrated mass, “De sancto spiritu,” at the high altar, and having called a chapter by tolling a bell about ten o’ the clock, we, William Wyndesor, president, Peter Berne, Thomas London, and William Stratfeld, canons, who alone had voices, being the only canons, about ten o’ the clock, first sung “Veni Creator,” the letters and license being read in the presence of many persons there. Then William Wyndesor, in his own name, and that of all the canons, made solemn proclamation, enjoining all who had no right to vote to depart out of the chapter-house. When all were withdrawn except Guyllery de Lacuna, in decretis Baccalarius, and Robert Peverell, notary public, and also the two chaplains, the first was requested to stay, that he might direct and inform us in the mode of election; the other, that he might record and attest the transactions; and the two last that they might be witness to them.
Then, having read the constitution of the general council “Quia propter,” and the forms of elections contained in it being sufficiently explained to them by De Lacuna, as well in Latin as the vulgar tongue, and having deliberated in what mode to proceed in this election, they resolved on that of scrutiny. Three of the canons, Wyndesor, Berne, and London, were made scrutators; Berne, London, and Stratfeld, choosing Wyndesor; Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, choosing Berne; Wyndesor, Berne, and Stratfeld, choosing London.
They were empowered to take each other’s vote, and then that of Stratfeld; “et ad inferiorem partem angularem” of the chapter-house, “juxta ostium ejusdem declinentes,” with the other persons (except Stratfeld, who stayed behind), proceeded to voting, two swearing, and taking the voice of the third, in succession, privately. Wyndesor voted first; “Ego credo Petrum Berne meliorem et utiliorem ad regimen istius ecclesie, et in ipsum consentio, ac eum nomino,” etc. Berne was next sworn, and in like manner nominated Wyndesor; London nominated Berne; Stratfeld was then called and sworn, and nominated Berne.
“Quibus in scriptis redactis,” by the notary public, they returned to the upper part of the chapter-house, where by Wyndesor “sic purecta fecerunt in communi,” and then solemnly, in form written, declared the election of Berne; when all, “antedicto nostro electo excepto, approbantes et ratificantes, cepimus decantare solemniter ‘Te Deum laudamus’, et sic canentes dictum electum ad majus altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud nos est moris. Then Wyndesor electionem clero et populo infra chorum dicte ecclesie congregatis publicavit, et personam electi publice et personaliter ostendit.” We then returned to the chapter-house, except our prior; and Wyndesor was appointed by the other two their proctor, to desire the assent of the elected, and to notify what had been done to the bishop; and to desire him to confirm the election, and do whatever else was necessary. Then their proctor, before the witnesses required Berne’s assent in the chapter-house; “qui quidem instanciis et precibus multiplicatis devictus,” consented, “licet ndignus electus,” in writing. They therefore request the bishop’s confirmation of their election “sic canonice et solemniter celebrata,” etc., etc. Sealed with their common seal, and subscribed and attested by the notary. Dat. in the chapter-house September 5th, 1472.
In consequence, September 11th, 1472, in the bishop’s chapel at Esher, and before the bishop’s commissary, appeared W. Wyndesor, and exhibited the above instrument, and a mandate from the bishop for the appearance of gainsayers of the election there on that day; and no one appearing, the absentees were declared contumacious and the election confirmed; and the vicar of Aulton was directed to induct and instal the prior in the usual manner.
Thus did Canon Berne, though advanced in years, reassume his abdicated priorship for the second time, to the no small satisfaction, as it may seem, of the Bishop of Winchester, who professed, as will be shown not long hence, a high opinion of his abilities and integrity.
LETTER XXII.
As Prior Berne, when chosen in 1454, held his priorship only to 1468, and then made a voluntary resignation, wearied and disgusted, as we may conclude, by the disorder that prevailed in his convent; it is no matter of wonder that, when re-chosen in 1472, he should not long maintain his station; as old age was then coming fast upon him, and the increasing anarchy and misrule of that declining institution required unusual vigour and resolution to stem that torrent of profligacy which was hurrying it on to its dissolution. We find, accordingly, that in 1478 he resigned his dignity again into the hands of the bishop.
Waynflete Reg. fol. 55.
Resignatio Prioris de Seleborne.
May 14, 1478. Peter Berne resigned the priorship. May 16, the bishop admitted his resignation “in manerio suo de Waltham,” and declared the priorship void; “et priorat. solacio destitutum esse;” and granted his letters for proceeding to a new election; when all the religious, assembled in the chapter-house, did transfer their power under their seal to the bishop, by the following public instrument.
“In Dei nomine Amen,” etc. A.D. 1478, Maii 19. In the chapter-house for the election of a prior for that day, on the free resignation of Peter Berne, having celebrated in the first place mass at the high altar “De spiritu sancto,” and having called a chapter by tolling a bell, ut moris est; in the presence of a notary and witnesses appeared personally Peter Berne, Thomas Ashford Stephen Clydgrove, and John Ashton, presbyters, and Henry Canwood,* in chapter assembled; and after singing the hymn
* Here we see that all the canons were changed in six years; and that there was quite a new chapter, Berne excepted, between 1472 and 1478; for, instead of Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, Clydgrove, Ashton, and Canwood, all new men, who were soon gone in their turn off the stage, and are heard of no more. For, in six years after, there seem to have been no canons at all.
After the visitor had fully deliberated on the matter, he proceeded to the choice of a prior, and elected, by the following instrument, John Sharp, alias Glastenbury.
Fol. 56. Provisio Prioris per Epm.
Willmus, etc., to our beloved brother in Christ, John Sharp, alias Glastenbury, Ecclesie conventualis de Bruton, of the order of St. Austin, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, canon-regular—salutem, etc., "De tue circumspectionis industria plurimum confidentes, te virum providum et discretum, literarum scientia, et moribus merito commendandum," etc.—do appoint you prior—under our seal. "Dat in manerio nostro de Suthwaltham, May 20," 1478, "et nostre Consec. 31."
Thus did the bishop, three times out of the four that he was at liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a distance, a stranger to the place, to govern the convent of Selborne, hoping by this method to have broken the cabal, and to have interrupted that habit of mismanagement that had pervaded the society; but he acknowledges, in an evidence lying before us, that he never did succeed to his wishes with respect to those late governors,—"quos tamen male se habuisse, et inutiliter administrare, et administrasse usque ad presentia tempora post debitam investigationem, etc., invenit." The only time that he appointed from among the canons, he made choice of Peter Berne, for whom he had conceived the greatest esteem and regard.
When Prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he returned again to his former condition of canon, in which he continued for some years; but when he was re-chosen, and had abdicated a second time, we find him in a forlorn state, and in danger of being reduced to beggary, had not the Bishop of Winchester interposed in his favour, and with great humanity insisted on a provision for him for life. The reason for this difference seems to have been, that, in the first case, though in years, he might have been hale and capable of taking his share in the duty of the convent; in the second he was broken with age, and no longer equal to the functions of a canon.
Impressed with this idea, the bishop very benevolently interceded in his favour, and laid his injunctions on the new-elected prior in the following manner:
Fol. 56. “In Dei nomine Amen. Nos Willmus, &c., considerantes Petrum Berne,” late prior, “in administratione spiritualium et temporalium prioratus laudabiliter vixisse et rexisse; ipsumque senio et corporis debilitate confractum; ne in opprobrium religionis mendicari cogatur;—eidem annuam pensionem a Domino Johanne Sharpe, alias Glastonbury, priore moderno,” and his successors, and, from the priory or church, to be paid every year during his life, “de voluntate et ex consensu expressis” of the said John Sharp, “sub ea que sequitur forma verborum—assignamus:”
1st. That the said prior and his successors, for the time being, honeste exhibebunt of the fruits and profits of the priorship, “eidem esculenta et poculenta,” while he remained in the priory,” “sub consimili portione eorundem prout convenientur priori,” for the time being, ministrari contigerit; and in like manner uni famulo, whom he should choose to wait on him, as to the servientibus of the prior.
Item. “Invenient seu exhibebunt eidem unam honestam cameram,” in the priory, “cum socalibus necessariis seu opportunis ad eundem.”
Item. We will, ordain, etc, to the said P. Berne an annual pension of ten marks, from the revenue of the priory, to be paid by the hands of the prior quarterly.
The Bishop decrees farther, that John Sharp, and his successors, shall take an oath to observe this injunction, and that before their installation.
“Lecta et facta sunt hæc in quodam alto oratorio,” belonging to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25th, 1478, in the presence of John Sharp, who gave his assent, and then took the oath before witnesses, with the other oaths before the chancellor, who decreed he should be inducted and installed, as was done that same day.
How John Sharp, alias Glastonbury, acquitted himself in his priorship, and in what manner he made a vacancy, whether by resignation, or death, or whether he was removed by the visitor, does not appear; we only find that some time in the year 1484 there was no prior, and that the bishop nominated Canon Ashford to fill the vacancy.
LETTER XXIII.
This Thomas Ashford was most undoubtedly the last prior of Selborne; and, therefore, here will be the proper place to say something concerning a list of the priors, and to endeavour to improve that already given by others.
At the end of Bishop Tanner’s “Notitia Monastica,” the folio edition, among Brown Willis’s “Principals of Religious Houses,” occur the names of eleven of the priors of Selborne, with dates. But this list is imperfect, and particularly at the beginning; for though the priory was founded in 1232, yet it commences with Nich. de Cantia, elected in 1262, so that, for the first thirty years, no prior is mentioned; yet there must have been one or more. We were in hopes that the register of Peter de Rupibus would have rectified this omission; but, when it was examined, no information of the sort was to be found. From the year 1410 the list is much corrected and improved, and the reader may depend on its being thenceforward very exact.
A list of the Priors of Selborne Priory, from Brown Willis's "Principals of Religious Houses," with additions within [ ] by the Author.
* See, in Letter XL of these Antiquities, the reason why Prior John. . . . who had transactions with the Knights Templars, is placed in the list before the year 1262.
| [John . . . . was prior, sine dat.]* | |
| Nich. de Cantia el. . . . . . . | 1262 |
| [Peter———was prior in. . . . . . | 1271] |
| [Richard———was prior in. . . . . . | 1280] |
| Will. Basing was prior in. . . . . . | 1299 |
| Walter de Insula el. in. . . . . . | 1324 |
| [Some difficulties and a devolution ; but the election confirmed by Bishop Stratford.] | |
| John de Wintõn. . . . . . | 1339 |
| Thomas Weston. . . . . . | 1377 |
| John Winchester, [Wynchestre] . . . . . . | 1410 |
| [Elected by Bishop Beaufort "per viam vel formam simplicis compromissi."] | |
| [John Stype, alias Stepe, in. . . . . . | 1411] |
| keeper, and, by lapse to Bishop Waynflete, prior] in . . . |
1454 |
| [He resigns in 1468.] | |
| John Morton [Prior of Reygate] in. . . | 1468 |
| [The canons by compromise transfer the power | |
| of election to the bishop.] | |
| Will. Winsor [Wyndesor, prior for a few days] . . | 1471 |
| [But removed on account of an irregular election.] | |
| Thomas Farwill [Fairwise, vicar of Samborne] . . | 1471 |
| [By compromise again elected by the bishop.] | |
| [Peter Berne, re-elected by scrutiny in . . . . | 1472] |
| [Resigns again in 1478.] | |
| John Sharper [Sharp], alias Glastonbury . . . . | 1478 |
| [Canon-reg. of Bruton, elected by the bishop by compromise.] | |
| [Thomas Ashford, canon of Selborne, last prior elected by the Bishop of Winchester, some time | |
| in the year. . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 1484 |
| And deposed at the dissolution.] |
LETTER XXIV.
Bishop Waynflete'S efforts to continue the Priory still proved unsuccessful; and the convent, without any canons, and for some time without a prior, was tending swiftly to its dissolution.
When Sharp's alias Glastonbury's priorship ended does not appear. The bishop says that he had been obliged to remove some priors for mal-administration; but it is not well explained how that could be the case with any unless with Sharp, because all the others chosen during his episcopate died in their office,—viz., Morton and Fairwise; Berne only excepted, who relinquished twice voluntarily, and was, moreover, approved of by Waynflete as a person of integrity. But the way to show what ineffectual pains the bishop took, and what difficulties he met with, will be to quote the words of the libel of his proctor, Rudolphus Langley, who appeared for the bishop in the process of the impropriation of the Priory of Selborne. The extract is taken from an attested copy.
"Item—that the said bishop, dicto prioratui et personis ejusdem pie compatiens, sollicitudines pastorales, labores, et diligentias gravissimas quam plurimas, tam per se quam per suos, pro reformatione premissorum impendebat; et aliquando illius loci prioribus, propter malam et inutilem administrationem, et dispensationem bonorum predicti prioratus, suis demeritis exigentibus, amotis; alios priores in quorum circumspectione et diligentia confidebat, prefecit; quos tamen male se habuisse ac inutiliter administrare, et administrasse, usque ad presentia tempora post debitam investigationem, &c., invenit.” So that he despaired with all his care: "statum ejusdem reparare vel restaurare:; et considerata temporis malicia, et preteritis timendo et conjecturando futura, de aliqua bona et sancta religione ejusdem ordinis, &c., juxta piam intentionem primevi fundatoris ibidem habend. desperatur.”
William Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester, founded his college of Saint Mary Magdalene, in the University of Oxford, in or about the year 1459; but the revenues proving insufficient for so large and noble an establishment, the college supplicated the founder to augment its income by putting it in possession of the estates belonging to the Priory of Selborne, now become a deserted convent, without canons or prior. The president and fellows state the circumstances of their numerous institutions and scanty provision, and the ruinous and perverted condition of the Priory. The bishop appoints commissaries to inquire into the state of the said monastery; and, if found expedient, to confirm the appropriation of it to the college, which soon after appoints attorneys to take possession, September 24th, 1484. But the way to give the reader a thorough insight respecting this transaction, will be to transcribe a farther proportion of the process of the impropriation, from the beginning, which will lay open the manner of proceeding, and show the consent of the parties.
Impropriatio Selborne, 1485.
"Universis sancte matris ecclesie filiis, &c. Ricardus Dei gratia prior ecclesie conventualis de Novo Loco, &c.,* ad universitatem vestre notitie deducimus, &c., quod coram nobis commissario predicto in ecclesia parochiali Sit Georgii de Esher
* Ecclesia Conventualis de Novo Loco was the monastery afterwards called the New Minster, or Abbey of Hyde, in the city of Winchester. Should any intelligent reader wonder to see that the prior of Hyde Abbey was commissary to the Bishop of Winton, and should conclude that there was a mistake in titles, and that the abbot must have been here meant; he will be pleased to recollect that this person was the second in rank; for, next under the abbot, in every abbey, was the prior.”—Pref. to Notit. Monast.,^. 29. Besides, abbots were great personages, and too high in station to submit to any office under the bishop.
W. Cowper being then absent, Radulphus Langley appeared for the bishop, and was admitted his proctor. Preston produced his libel or article in scriptis for the union, &c.; "et admitti petiit eundem cum effectu; cujus libelli tenor sequitur.—In Dei nomine. Amen. Coram nobis venerabili in Christo patre Richardo, priore, &c., de Novo Loco, &c., commissario, &c.” Part of the College of Magd. dicit. allegat, and in his “scriptis proponit,” &c.
"Imprimis—that said college consists of a president and eighty scholars, besides sixteen choristers, thirteen servientes inibi altissimo famulantibus, et in scientiis plerisque liberalibus, presertim in sacra theologia studentibus, nedum ad ipsorum presidentis et scholarium pro presenti et imposterum, annuente deo, incorporandorum in eodem relevamen; verum etiam ad omnium et singulorum tam scholarium quam religiosorum cujuscunque ordinis undequaque illuc confluere pro salubri doctrina volentium utilitatem multiplicem ad incrementa virtutis fideique catholice stabilimentum. Ita videlicet quod omnes et singuli absque personarum seu nationum delectu illuc accedere volentes, lecturas publicas et doctrinas tam in grammatica in loco ad collegium contiguo, ac philosophiis morali, et natural! quam in sacra theologia in eodem collegio perpetuis temporibus continuandas libere atque gratis audire valeant et possint, ad laudem gloriam et honorem Dei, &c., extitit fundatum et stabilitum.”
For the first item in this process see the beginning of this letter. Then follows item the second—"that the revenues of the college non sufficiunt his diebus.” “Item—that the premises are true, &c., et super eisdem laborarunt, et laborante publica vox et fama. Unde facta fide petit pars eorundem that the priory be annexed to the college: ita quod dicto prioratu vacante liceat iis ex tune to take possession, &c.” This libel, with the express consent of the other proctors, we, the commissary, admitted, and appointed the 6th August for proctor Preston to prove the premisses.
Preston produced witnesses, W. Gyfford, S.T.P., John Nele, A.M., John Chapman, chaplain, and Robert Baron, literatus, who were admitted and sworn, when the court was prorogued to the 6th August; and the witnesses, on the same 5th August, were examined by the commissary, "in capella infra manerium de Essher situata secrete et singillatim.” Then follow the "literæ procuratoriæ:" first that of the college, appointing Preston and Langport their proctors, dated August 3oth, 1484; then that of the prior and convent of the cathedral of Winton, appointing David Husband and Michael Cleve, dated September 4th, 1484 then that of the bishop, appointing W. Gyfford, Radulphus Langley and Will. Cowper, dated September 3rd, 1484. Consec. 38°°.—“Quo die adveniente in dicta ecclesia parochiali,” appeared, "coram nobis,” James Preston to prove the contents of his libel, and exhibited some letters testimonial with the seal of the bishop, and these were admitted; and consequenter Preston produced two witnesses, viz., Dominum Thomam Ashforde, nuper priorem dicti prioratus, et Willm. Rabbys, literatum, who were admitted and sworn, and examined as the others, by the commissary; “tum & ibidem assistente scriba secrete & singillatim"; and their depositions were read and made public, as follows:—
Mr. W. Gyfford, S. T. P., aged 57, of the state of Magd. Coll. etc., etc., as before.
Mr. John Nele, aged 57, proves the articles also.
Robert Baron, aged 56.
Johannes Chapman, aged 35, also affirmed all the five articles.
Dompnus Thomas Ashforde, aged 72 years—"dicit 2 dum. 3um. 4um. articulos in eodem libello contentos, concernentes statum dicti prioratus de Selbourne, fuisse et esse veros.”
W. Rabbys, ætat 40 ann., agrees with Gyfford, etc.
Then follows the letter from the bishop, "in subsidium probationis,” above-mentioned—"Willmus, &c., salutem, &c., noverint universitas vestra, quod licet nos prioratui de Selbourne, &c. pie compacientes sollicitudines pastorales, labores, diligentias quam plurimas per nos & commissarios nostros pro reformatione status ejus impenderimus, justicia id poscente; nihilominus tamen,” etc., as in the article—to "desperatur,” dated "in manerio nostro de Esher, Aug. 3d, 1485, & consec. 39.” Then on the 6th August, Preston, in the presence of the other proctors, required that they should be compelled to answer; when they all allowed the articles, "fuisse & esse vera;" and the commissary, at the request of Preston, concluded the business, and appointed Monday, August 8th, for giving his decree in the same church of Esher, and it was that day read, and contains a recapitulation, with the sentence of union, etc., witnessed and attested.
As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalen College had obtained the decision of the commissary in their favour, they proceeded to supplicate the Pope, and to entreat His Holiness that he would give his sanction to the sentence of union. Some difficulties 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 8th June, in the year of our Lord 1486, 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 Selborne 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 dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII. The founder, it is probable, 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.”
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 1486.
* 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 £337 15s. 6¼d. Now a floren, so named, says Camden, because made by Florentius, was a gold coin of King Edward III., in value 6s., whereof 160 is not one-seventh part of £337 15s. 6¼d.
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 priory and convent of Saint Swithun, as the chapter of Winchester cathedral, confirmed the release.*
N. 293. “Relaxatio Petri epi Winton, Ricardo Mayew, Presidenti omnium actionum occasione indempnitatis sibi debite pro unione Prioratus de Selborne dicto collegio. Jan. 2. 1487, et translat. anno i°.”
N. 374. “Relaxatio prioris et conventus Sti. Swithini Winton confirmans relaxationem Petri ep. Winton.” 1487., Jan. 13.
Ashforde, the deposed prior, who had appeared as an evidence for the impropriation of the priory at the age of seventy-two years, that he might not be destitute of a maintenance, was pensioned by the college to the day of his death; and was living on till 1490, as appears by his acquittances.
Reg. A. ff. 46.
“Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos presens scriptum pervenerit, Richardus Mayew, presidens, &c. et scolares, salutem in Domino.
"Noveritis nos prefatos presidentem et scolares, dedisse, concessisse, et hoc presenti scripto confirmasse Thome Ashforde, capellano, quendam annualem redditum sex librarum tresdecim solidorum et quatuor denariorum bone et legalis monete Anglie—ad terminum vite prefati Thome”—to be paid from the possessions of the college in Basingstoke.—"In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nostrum commune presentibus apponimus. Dat. Oxon. in coll. nostro supra dicto primo die mensis Junii anno regis Ricardi tertii secundo,” viz. 1484. The college, in their grant to Ashforde, style him only capellanus; but the annuitant very naturally, and with a becoming dignity, asserts his late title in his acquittances, and identifies himself by the addition of the nuper priorem, or late prior.
As, according to the persuasion of the times, the depriving the founder and benefactors of the priory of their masses and services
*The Bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Priory.
The college also sent Nicholas Langrish, who had been a chantry priest at Selborne, to celebrate mass for the souls of all that had been benefactors to the said priory and college, and for all the faithful who had departed this life.
N. 356. Thomas Knowles, presidens, etc.—"damus et concedimus Nicholao Langrish quandum capellaniam, vel salarium, sive alio quocunque nomine censeatur, in prioratu quondam de Selborne pro termino 40 annorum, si tam diu vixerit. Ubi dictus mag. Nicholaus celebrabit pro animabus omnium benefactorum dicti prioratus et coll. nostri, et omnium fidelium defunctorum. Insuper nos, &c. concedimus eidem ibidem celebranti in sustentationem suam quandam annualem pensionem sive annuitatem octo librarum, &c.—in dicta capella dicti prioratus—concedimus duas cameras contiguas ex parte boreali dicte capelle, cum una coquina, et cum uno stabulo conveniente pro tribus equis, cum pomerio eidem adjacente voc. le Orcheyard—Preterea 26s. 8d. per ann. ad inveniendum unum clericum ad serviendum sibi ad altare, et aliis negotiis necessariis ejus.”—His wood to be granted him by the president on the progress.—He was not to absent himself beyond a certain time; and was to superintend the coppices, wood, and hedges.—Dat. 5to. die Julii. an°. Hen. VIIIvi. 36°.” [viz. 1546.]
Here we see the priory in a new light, reduced, as it were, to the state of a chantry, without prior and without canons, and attended only by a priest, who was also a sort of bailiff or woodman, his assistant clerk, and his female cook. Owen Oglethorpe, president, and Magd. Coll. in the fourth year of Edward VI., viz. 1551, granted an annuity of ten pounds a year for life to Nich. Langrish, who, from the preamble, appears then to have been fellow of that society: but, being now superannuated for business, this pension is granted him for thirty years, if he should live so long. It is said of him—“cum jam sit provectioris etatis qua mut,” etc.
Laurence Stubb, president of Magd. Coll., leased out the priory lands to John Sharp, husbandman, for the term of twenty years, as early as the seventeenth year of Henry VIII., viz., 1526: and it appears that Henry Newlyn had been in possession of the lease before, probably towards the end of the reign of Henry VII. Sharp’s rent was vi11. per ann.—Regist. B. p. 43.
By an abstract from a lease lying before me, it appears that Sharp found a house, two barns, a stable, and a duf-house [dove-house] built, and standing on the south side of the old priory, and late in the occupation of Newlyn. In this abstract also are to be seen the names of all the fields, many of which continue the same to this day.* Of some of them I shall take notice, where anything singular occurs.
And here first we meet with Paradyss [Paradise] mede. Every convent had its paradise; which probably was an enclosed orchard, pleasantly laid out, and planted with fruit-trees. Tylehouse grove, so distinguished from having a tiled house near it.† Butt-wood close; here the servants of the priory and the villageswains exercised themselves with their long bows, and shot at a mark against a butt, or bank.‡—Cundyth [conduit] wood: the engrosser of the lease not understanding this name, has made a strange barbarous word of it. Conduit wood was and is a steep, rough cow-pasture, lying above the priory, at about a quarter of a mile to the south-west. In the side of this field there is a spring
* It may not be amiss to mention here that various names of tithings, farms, fields, woods, etc., which appear in the ancient deeds, and evidences of several centuries standing, are still preserved in common use with little or no variation:—as Norton, Southington, Durton, Achangre, Blackmore, Bradshot, Rood, Plestor, etc., etc. At the same time it should be acknowledged that other places have entirely lost their original titles, as le Buri and Trucstede in this village; and la Liege, or la Lyge, which was the name of the original site of the Priory, etc.
† Men at first heaped sods, or fern, or heath, on their roofs to keep off the inclemencies of weather; and then by degrees laid straw or haum. The first refinements on roofing were shingles which are very ancient. Tiles are a late and imperfect covering, and were not much in use till the beginning of the sixteenth century, The first tiled house at Nottingham was in 1503.
‡ There is also a Butt-close just at the back of the village.
There was also a plot of ground called Tan-house garden: and "Tannaria sua,” a tan-yard of their own, has been mentioned in Letter XVI. This circumstance I just take notice of, as an instance that monasteries had trades and occupations carried on within themselves.†
Registr. B., p. 112. Here we find a lease of the parsonage of Selborne to Thomas Sylvester and Miles Arnold, husbandmen—of the tythes of all manner of corne pertaining to the parsonage—with the offerings at the chapel of Whaddon belonging to the said parsonage. Dat. June 1. 27th . Hen. 8th . [viz. 1536.]
As the chapel of Whaddon has never been mentioned till now, and as it is not noticed by Bishop Tanner in his "Notitia Monastica,” some more particular account of it will be proper in this place. Whaddon was a chapel of ease to the mother church of Selborne, and was situated in the tithing of Oakhanger, at about two miles distance from the village. The farm and field whereon it stood are still called chapel farm and field: ‡ but there are no remains or traces of the building itself, the very
* N. 381. "Clausure terre abbatie ecclesie parochiali de Seleburne, ixs. iiid. Reparacionibus domorum predicti prioratus iiii. lib. xis. Aque conduct, ibidem, xxiiid/.
† There is still a wood near the Priory, called Tanner’s wood.
‡ This is a manor-farm, at present the property of Lord Stawell; and belonged probably in ancient times to Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, one of the first benefactors to the Priory.
The Selborne rivulet becomes of some breadth at Oakhanger, and, in very wet seasons, swells to a large flood. There is a bridge over the stream at this hamlet of considerable antiquity and peculiar shape, known by the name of Tunbridge: it consists of one single blunt Gothic arch, so high and sharp as to render the passage not very convenient or safe. Here was also, we find, a bridge in very early times; for Jacobus de Hochangre, the first benefactor to the priory of Selborne, held his estate at Hochangre by the service of providing the king one foot-soldier for forty days, and by building this bridge. “Jacobus de Hochangre tenet Hochangre in com. Southampton, per Serjantiam,† inveniendi unum valectum in exercitu Domini regis [scil. Henrici IIIlll.] per 40 dies; et ad faciendum pontem de Hochangre: et valet per ann. C. s.”—"Blount’s Ancient Tenures,” p. 84.
A dove-house was a constant appendant to a manerial dwelling: of this convenience more will be said hereafter.
A corn-mill was also esteemed a necessary appendage of every manor; and therefore was to be expected of course at the priory of Selborne.
The prior had secta molendini, or ad mokndinum;‡ a power of
* See Letter XIX. of these Antiquities. —“Summa total, solut. de novis edificationibus, et raparacionibus per idem tempus, ut patet per comput.”
“Videlicet de nova edificat. Capelle Marie de Wadden. xiiii. lib. v’s. viiid.—Reparacionibus ecclesie Prioratus, cancellor. et capellar. ecclesiarum et capellarum de Selborne, et Estworhlam.”—etc., etc.
† Sargentia, a sort of tenure of doing something for the king.
‡ Servitium, quo feudatorii grana sua ad Domini molendinum, ibi molenda perferre, ex consuetidine, astringuntur.”
Occasional mention has been made of the many privileges and immunities enjoyed by the convent and its priors; but a more particular state seems to be necessary. The author, therefore, thinks this the proper place, before he concludes these antiquities, to introduce all that has been collected by the judicious Bishop Tanner, respecting the priory and its advantages, in his "Notitia Monastica,” a book now seldom seen, on account of the extravagance of its price, and being but in few hands cannot be easily consulted.† He also adds a few of its many privileges from other authorities:—the account is as follows. Tanner, page 166.
* Thomas Knowles, president, etc. ann. Hen. 8vi. xxiii°. [1532] demised to J. Whitelie their mills, etc., for twenty years. Rent xxiiis. iiid.—Accepted Frewen, president, etc. ann. Caroli xv. [viz. 1640.] demised to Jo. Hook and Elizabeth his wife, the said mills. Rent as above.
† A few days after this was written a new edition of this valuable work was announced, in the month of April of the year 1787, as published by Mr. Nasmith.
SELBURNE.
A priory of black canons, founded by the often-mentioned Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, A. D. 1233, and dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary; but was suppressed, and granted to William Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester, who made it part of the endowment of St. Mary Magdalene College in Oxford. The Bishops of Winchester were patrons of it. [Pat. 17, Edward II.] Vide. Mon. Ang. tom ii. p. 343. "Cartam fundationis ex ipso autographo in archivis Coll. Magd. Oxon. ubi etiam conservata sunt registra, cartæ, rentali et alia munimenta ad hunc prioratum spectantia.
"Extracta quædam e registro MSS. in bibl. Bodl.—Dodworth vol. 89, f. 140.
“Cart, antiq. N. N. n. 33. P. P. n. 48. et. 71. Q. Q. n. 40. plac. coram justit. itin. [Southampton] 20. Hen. rot. 25. De eccl, de Basing & Basingstoke. Plac. de juratis apud Winton. 40 Hen. III. rot.—Protecta molendini de Strete. Cart. 54. Hen. III. m. 3. [De mercatu, & feria apud Seleborne, a mistake.] Pat. 9. Edw. I. m.—Pat. 30. Edw. I. m.—Pat 33. Edw. I. p. i. m.—Pat. 35. Edw. I. m.—Pat. i. Edw. II. p. i. m. 9. Pat. 5. Edw. II. p. i. m. 21. De terris in Achanger. Pat. 6. Edw. II. p. i. m. 7 de. eisdem. Brev. in Scacc. 6. Edw. II. Pasch. rot. 8. Pat 17. Edw. II. p. i. m.—Cart. 10. Edw. III. n. 24. Quod terræ suæ in Ssleburn, Achangre, Norton, Basings, Basingstoke, an Nately, sint de afforestatæ, and pro aliis libertatibus. Pat. 12. Edw. III. p. 3. m. 3.—Pat. 10. Edw. III. p. i. m.—Cart. 18. Edw, III. n. 24.”
“N. N. 33. Rex concessit quod prior, et canonici de Seleburn habeant per terras suas de Seleburne, Achangre, Norton, Brompden, Basinges, Basingstoke, & Nately, diversas libertates.
"P. P. 48. Quod prior de Seleburne, habeat terras suas quietas de vasto, et regardo.”—Extracts from Ayloffe’s Calendars of Ancient Charters.
"Placita de juratis & assis coram Salom de Roff, & sociis suis justic. itiner. apud Wvnton in comitatu Sutht.—anno regni R. Edwardi filii reg. Henr. octavo.—Et Por de Seleborn ht in Selebr. fure, thurset. pillory, emendasse panis, & suis.” [cerevisæ.]—Chapter House, Westminster.
"Placita Foreste apud Wynton in com. Sutham.—Anno reg. Edwardi octavo coram Rog. de Clifford, &c. Justic. ad eadem placita audienda et tminand. assigtis.
'Carta Pror de Seleburn, H. Dei gra. rex. angl. &c. Concessim, prior. sce. Marie de Seleburn. et canonicis ibidem Deo servient.————————q ipi et oes hoies sui in pdcis terris suis et tenementis manentes sint in ppetum quieti de sectis Swanemotor. et omnium alior. placitor. for. et de espeltamentis canum. et de omnibus submonitoibz. placitis querelis et exaccoibus et occoibz. ad for. et for et viridar. et eor. ministros ptinentibz.”—Chapter-house, Westminster.
"Plita Forestarum in com. Sutht. apud Suthamton——anno regni regis Edwardi tcii post consequentum quarto coram Johz Mantvers. &c., justic. itinand. &c.,
"De hiis qui clamant libtates infra Forestas in com. Sutht.
"Prior de Selebourne clamat esse quietus erga dnm regem de omnibus finibus et amerciamentis p tnsgr. et omnibus, exaccoibe ad Dom. regem vel hered. suos ptinent. pret. plita corone reg.
"Item clamat qd si aliquis hominum suorum de terris et ten p. deliciato suo vitam aut membrum debeat amittere velfugiat, & judico stare noluerit vel aliud delictum fecit pro quo debeat catella sua amittere, ubicuncq; justitia fieri debeat omnia catella ilia sint ptci Prioris et successor, suor. Et liceat eidem priori et ballis suis ponere se in seisinam in hujusmodi catall. in casibus pdcis sine disturbacone ballivor. dni. reg. quorumcunque.
"Item clam, quod licet aliqua libtatum p dnm regem concessar, pcessu temporis quocunq; casu contingente usi non fuerint, nlominus postea eadm libtate uti possit. Et pdcus prior quesitus p justic. quo waranto clamat omn. terr. et ten. sua in Seleburne, Norton, Basynges, Basyngestoke, & Nattele. que prior domus pdte huit & tenuit Xmo. die April anno regni dni Hen. reg. nue XVIII. imppm effe quieta de vasto et regardo, et visu forestarior. et viridarior. regardator. et omnium ministrorum foreste.” etc., etc. Chapter House, Westminster.
LETTER XXVI.
Though the evidences and documents of the Priory and parish of Selborne are now at an end, yet as the author has still several things to say respecting the present state of that convent and its Grange, and other matters, he does not see how he can acquit himself of the subject without trespassing again on the patience of the reader by adding one supplementary letter.
No sooner did the Priory (perhaps much out of repair at the time) become an appendage to the college, but it must at once have tended to swift decay. Magdalen College wanted now only two chambers for the chantry priest and his assistant; and therefore had no occasion for the hall, dormitory, and other spacious apartments belonging to so large a foundation. The roofs neglected, would soon become the possession of daws and owls; and, being rotted and decayed by the weather, would fall in upon the floors, so that all parts must have hastened to speedy dilapidation and a scene of broken ruins. Three full centuries have now passed since the dissolution—a series of years that would craze the stoutest edifices. But, besides the slow hand of time, many circumstances have contributed to level this venerable structure with the ground, of which nothing now remains but one piece of wall about ten feet long, and as many feet high, which probably was a part of an outhouse. As early as the latter end of the reign of Henry VII., we find that a farmhouse and two barns were built to the south of the Priory, and undoubtedly out of its materials. . Avarice again has much contributed to the overthrow of this stately pile, as long as the tenants could make money of its stones or timbers. Wantonness, no doubt, has had a share in the demolition; for boys love to destroy what men venerate and admire. A remarkable instance of this propensity the writer can give from his own knowledge. When a school-boy, more than fifty years ago, he was eye-witness, perhaps a party concerned, in the undermining a portion of that fine old ruin at the north end of Basingstoke town, well known by the name of Holy Ghost Chapel. Very providentially the vast fragment, which these thoughtless little engineers endeavoured to sap, did not give way so soon as might have been expected; but it fell the night following, and with such violence that it shook the very ground, and, awakening the inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages, made them start up in their beds as if they had felt an earthquake. The motive for this dangerous attempt does not so readily appear; perhaps the more danger the more honour thought the boys, and the notion of doing some mischief gave a zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says upon another occasion—
“It look’d so like a sin it pleas’d the more.”
Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of the ground, the discerning eye of an antiquary might have ascertained its ichnography, and some judicious hand might have developed its dimensions. But besides other ravages, the very foundations have been torn up for the repair of the highways; so that the site of this convent is now become a rough, rugged pasture-field, full of hillocks and pits, choked with nettles and dwarf-elder, and trampled by the feet of the ox and the heifer.
As the tenant at the priory was lately digging among the foundations for materials to mend the highways, his labourers discovered two large stones, with which the farmer was so pleased that he ordered them to be taken out whole. One of these proved to be a large Doric capital, worked in good taste; and the other a base of a pillar, both formed out of the soft freestone of this district. These ornaments, from their dimensions, seemed to have belonged to massive columns, and show that the church of this convent was a large and costly edifice. They were found in the space which has always been supposed to have contained the south transept of the priory church. Some fragments of large pilasters were also found at the same time. The diameter of the capital was two feet three inches and a half; and of the column, where it had stood on the base, eighteen inches and three-quarters.
Two years ago, some labourers, digging again among the ruins sounded a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft stone, containing about two gallons in measure, on the verge of the brook, in the very spot which tradition has always pointed out as having been the site of the convent kitchen. This clumsy utensil,* whether intended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, and carried it out on the highways.
The priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a grange, an usual appendage to manerial estates, where the fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a time when men took the natural produce of their estates in kind. The mansion of this spot is still called the Grange, and is the manor-house of the convent possessions in this place. The author has conversed with very ancient people who remembered the old original Grange but it has long given place to a modern farm-house. Magdalen College holds a court-leet and court-baron† in the great wheatbarn of the said Grange, annually, where the president usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the college.‡
The following uncommon presentment at the court is not unworthy of notice. There is on the south side of the king’s field (a large common-field, so called) a considerable tumulus, or hillock, now covered with thorns and bushes, and known by the name of Kite’s Hill, which is presented, year by year, in court as not ploughed. Why this injunction is still kept up respecting this spot, which is surrounded on all sides by arable land, may be a question not easily solved, since the usage has long survived the knowledge of the intention thereof. We can only suppose that as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had also furcas, a power of life and death, he might have reserved this little eminence as the place of execution for delinquents. And there is the more
* A judicious antiquary who saw this vase, observed, that it possibly might have been a standard measure between the monastery and its tenants. The priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and beer in Selborne manor; and probably the adjustment of dry measures for grain, etc.
† The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter and Whitsuntide.
‡ Owen Oglethorpe, president, etc., an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547.] demised to Robert Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Rent vi 11 . Index of Leases.
The lower part of the village, next the Grange, in which is a pond and a stream, is well known by the name of Gracious Street, an appellation not at all understood. There is a lake in Surrey, near Chobham, called also Gracious Pond; and another, if we mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This strange denomination we do not at all comprehend, and conclude that it may be a corruption from some Saxon word, itself perhaps forgotten.
It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner was mistaken when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, "De mercante feria de Seleburne.” Selborne never had a chartered fair; the present fair was set up since the year 1681, by a set of jovial fellows, who had found in an old almanack that there had been a fair here in former days on the 1st August; and were desirous to revive so joyous a festival. Against this innovation the vicar set his face, and persisted in crying it down, as the probable occasion of much intemperance. However, the fair prevailed, but was altered to the 29th May, because the former day often interfered with wheat-harvest. On that day it still continues to be held, and is become an useful mart for cows and calves. Most of the lower housekeepers brew beer against this holiday, which is dutied by the exciseman, and their becoming victuallers for the day without a license is overlooked.
Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within themselves. Thus, at the priory, a low and moist situation, there were ponds and stews for their fish; at the same place also, and at the Grange in Culver* Croft, there were dove-houses; and on the hill opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, as the names of The Coney-Crofts and Coney Croft Hanger plainly testify.†
Nothing has been said, as yet, respecting the tenure or holding of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms, and freeholds; as is the manor of Chapel, near Oakhanger, and also the estate at Oakhanger House and Blackmoor. The priory
* Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon.
† A warren was an usual appendage to a manor.
Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity from the near neighbourhood of the priory. For monasteries were of considerable advantage to places where they had their sites and estates, by causing great resort, by procuring markets and fairs, by freeing them from the cruel oppression of forest laws, and by letting their lands at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent was suppressed, the town which it had occasioned began to decline, and the market was less frequented; the rough and sequestered situation gave a check to resort, and the neglected roads rendered it less and less accessible.
That it had been a considerable place for size, formerly, appears from the largeness of the church, which much exceeds those of the neighbouring villages; by the ancient extent of the burying-ground, which, from human bones occasionally dug up, is found to have been much encroached upon; by giving a name to the hundred; by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and tracery of windows that have been discovered on the north-east side of the village; and by the many vestiges of disused fish-ponds still to be seen around it. For ponds and stews were multiplied in the times of popery, that the affluent might enjoy some variety at their tables on fast days; therefore, the more they abounded the better probably was the condition of the inhabitants.
More Particulars respecting the old Family Tortoise, omitted in the Natural Hlstory.
Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord,
———Much too wise to walk into a well:”
Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun; because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, "scald with safety.” He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidst the waving forests of an asparagus bed.
But, as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall; and, though he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth,* he inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray.
Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile; to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible; and often has eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. The motives that impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of the amorous kind; his fancy then becomes intent on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment.
* Several years ago a book was written entitled “Fruit Walls Improved by Inclining them to the Horizon:” in which the author has shown, by calculation, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on such walls than on those which are perpendicular.