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
