The various bodies of friars must have suffered quite as severely as the rest of the clergy. It is, however, very difficult to obtain any definite information about these mendicant orders; but some slight indication of the dearth of members they must have experienced at this period in common with all other bodies in England, ecclesiastical and lay, is to be found in the episcopal registers of the period. In the diocese of Winchester, for example, the Augustinians had only one convent, at Winchester. From September, 1346, to June, 1348, they presented four subjects for ordination to the priesthood; from that time till Bishop Edyndon's death, in October, 1366, only two more were ordained, both on 22nd December, 1358. The Friars Minor had two houses, one at Winchester, the other at Southampton; for these, in 1347 and 1348, three priests were ordained. From that time till the 21st of December, 1359, no more received orders. Then two were made priests; but no further ordinations are recorded until after Bishop Edyndon's death. The same extraordinary want of subjects appears in the case of the Carmelites. With them, between 1346 and 1348, eleven subjects received the priesthood. The next Carmelite ordained was in December, 1357, and only three in all were made priests between the great plague and the close of the year 1366. The Dominicans also had only one priest ordained in ten years, that is in the period from March, 1349, to December, 1359. Owing to the mortality having swept away so many of [p184] their tenants, and other consequences traceable to the mortality, the priory of St. Swithun's became heavily involved in debt. On the 31st of December, 1352, Bishop Edyndon determined to make a careful inquiry into the state of his cathedral monastery, and wrote to that effect to the prior and convent. He says in his letter that he has heard how the temporalities have suffered severely "in these days, both by the deaths of tenants of the church, from which there has come a grave diminution of rent and services, and from various other causes unknown, and that it is burdened with excessive debts." As he himself was occupied in the King's service, he proposes to send some officers to inquire into these matters, and begs them to assist them in every way. He further says that it is reported to him "that in this our church the former fervour of devotion in the divine service and regular observance has grown lukewarm;" that both the monastery and out-buildings are falling to ruins; that "guests are not received there so honourably as before; on which account we wonder not a little," he continues, "and are troubled the more because so far you have not informed us" of these things. He appoints January 21, 1353, for the beginning of the inquiry, and in a second document names three priests, including a canon of the diocese of Sarum and the rector of Froyle, in Hampshire, to hold it.[341]