336 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
formam simplicis compromissi ;” when John Wynchestre, sub-prior, 
and all the others (the commissaries under-named 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 deportaré novum electum, by some 
of the brothers from the chapter-house to the high altar of the 
church ;* and the hymn being sung, dictisgue versiculo et oratione 
consuctis in hac parte, Thomas Halyborne, mox tunc tbidem, before 
the clergy and people of both sexes solemnly published the election 
in vilgari. Then Richard Elstede, and the whole convent by their 
_ proctors and nuncios appointed for the purposes, Thomas Halyborne 
and John Stepe, required several times the assent of the elected ; 
“fet tandem post diutinas interpellationes, et delberationes, et 
deliberationem providam penes se habitam, in hac parte divine 
nolens, ut asseruit, resistere voluntati,” within the limited time he 
signified his acceptance in the usual written form of words. The 
bishop is then supplicated to confirm their election, and do the 
needful, under common seal, in the chapter-house. November 14, 
1410, 
* It seems here as if the canons used to chair their new elected prior from the chapter- 
house to the high altar of theirConvent 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.”* 
