place of general public worship, it is used instead of the church, which is above a mile distant from the town, every other Sunday during the winter-season; and it has accommodations sufficient for as large a congregation as commonly assembles in the neighbourhood. This practice, after being discontinued many years, was resumed in 1785.

Leland, who has remarked that the haven was then decaying, informs us that in the memory of man shippelets had come up to the school, which he styles "the most nota"ble thing" at Waynflete. The fabric continues the principal ornament of the town; which is commonly mentioned likewise by later writers, as remarkable for its excellent good free-school; and I shall add, since August 1755 for an excellent good master, Mr. John Pickburn. But to return to Oxford:

SECT. IX. IN 1484 the advowson of the parsonage of Slimbridge in Gloucestershire and of Findon in Sussex was vested in Waynflete by the earl of Notyngham, on condition that he and Johanna his wife should, while living, have daily participation of all

Itin. vii. 50, 204.

the

the prayers and suffrages to be used in the chapel of the college; that intercession should be made for ever for their souls, for that of Thomas late lord Berkeley, and those of James and Isabella his parents; also, that on the decease of the earl, or his wife, the president and scholars should, at a convenient time after the knowledge of it, keep solemnly on the morrow an Obit De placebo and Dirige and mass De requiem, per notam. Learning had long been chiefly in the possession of ecclesiastics, and the lay lawyers, it should seem, still laboured under the imputation of ignorance; for the margin of the College Register informs us that this agreement was not drawn by the lawyers of the founder, but of the earl; and adds, “Igi"tur noli mirari de Latinitate."

SECT. X. WAYN FLETE, as bishop of Winchester, was patron of the priory of Seleburn in Hampshire, founded by the famous military bishop Peter de Rupibus in 1233 for canons regular of the order of St. Austin. Wyke

See Lowth.

1 Astwyck and Evenly, No 120o. A bill exhibited Jun. 25th, 29 Hen. VIII. in the behalf of Magdalen college, specifying certain

bulles

Wykeham in 1887 had endeavoured to make these monks conform to their institution; but they neglected his ordinances, relapsed into their former bad conduct, were again reduced in number, and had suffered such manifest ruin and notorious dilapidation on their premises, that in 1462 Waynflete sequestered the revenues to repair the priory and its appurtenances. He continued to labour, after the example of Wykeham, to restore and uphold the convent: but the society dwindled away; no prior or other canon regular, incorporated, was resident there; the neglect of the rules of the order and of religion had occasioned great scandal ; and in a multitude of instances the rents and profits were applied to the uses of laymen. The bishop, full of pastoral solicitude, and of pious compassion for the founder Peter de Rupibus, had been diligent, as he tells

bulles of popes for the suppressing of certain prioryes and hospitals, as that of Seale, Selborne, Romeney, Brackley and Aynho, the chapel of St. Catharine in Wanborough, St. John's hospital in Oxon, and uniting them to the college, as also the exemption from the bishop of Lincoln, and the converting of the remainder of the goods of Sir John Fastolf to the uses of the college.

See White. Hist. of Selborn.

Registr. Waynflete.

N

us,

us, in his own person and by his officers to remedy the evil. He had punished the maladministration of some priors by removing them, and had appointed governors in whose care and circumspection he could confide. His exertions had produced so little effect, that, considering the badness of the times, as he informs us, and from what was passed, fearing and anticipating the future, he was led utterly to despair of the possibility of establishing there again, either the order of St. Austin or any other, so as to answer the intention of Peter de Rupibus. Such being the situation of the convent and its visitor, it was resolved, on a petition of the president and scholars of Magdalen representing the insufficiency of their revenues for their maintenance, to annex the foundation to the college. The bishop, with the concurrence of the chapter of Wynton, directed commissaries in September 1484 to confirm the appropriation to them, so that, on the cession or vacancy of the priorship, they might enter on the premises, by their attorney. The process, probably from some flaw, was repeated in 1485, when the society of Magdalen consisted of a president, eighty

scholars,

scholars, sixteen choristers, and thirteen servitors1. It remained to obtain the sanction of the Pope; and the agent at Rome met with difficulty, from a plea, that the ordinary not having power to unite a regular with a secular benefice, the college had not been entitled to receive the income of the priory, but must refund it into the apostolic chamber. The same demand was made for the chapel of Wanborough. The business was protracted until June 1486, a few weeks before the death of Waynflete, when the bulle was issued. The society afterwards maintained there a chantry-priest, to say masses for the souls of all the benefactors of the priory and college, and of all the faithful defunct. He was allowed two chambers adjoining to the chapel, with conveniences for his residence, and a clerk to assist at the altar and in the superintendency of their possessions.

A transaction which met with no opposition at home, and was generally approved of at the time, has been mentioned by a writer or two of this age in a manner that

1 See Allegation in the Process before the Commissaries, 1485. in Seleburn, No 356. Index.

" Preface to Tanner's Notit. Mon. Angl. p. xxxiv. Grose.