358 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
ment 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 circum- 
stances of their numerous institution and scanty provision and the 
ruinous and perverted condition of the priory. The bishop ap- 
points 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 24, 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 pre- 
cicto in ecclesia parochiali S". Georgii de Esher, Dict. Winton. 
dioc. 3°. die Augusti, A.D. 1485. Indictione tertia pontificat. In- 
nocenti 8“. ann. 1™°, judicialiter comparuit venerabilis vir Jacobus 
Preston, S. T. P. infrascriptus, et exhibuit literas comissionis— 
quas quidem per magistrum Thomam Somercrotes notarium publi- 
cum, &c., legi fecimus, tenorem sequentem in se continentes.” 
The same as in No. 103, but dated—‘“‘ In manerio nostro de Esher, 
Augusti 1™. A.D. 1485, et. nostre confec. anno 39.” [No 103 is 
repeated in a book containing the like process in the preceding 
year by the same commissary, in the parish church of St. Andrew 
the Apostle, at Farnham, Sept. 6th, anno 1434.] ‘ Post quarum 
literarum lecturam—dictus magister Jacobus Preston, quasdam 
procuratorias literas mag. Richardi Mayhewe presidentis, ut asseruit, 
collegii beate Marie Magdalene, &c., sigillo rotundo communi, &c., 
in cera rubea impresso sigillatas realiter exhibuit, &c., et pro 
eisdem dnis suis, &c., fecit se partem, ac nobis supplicavit ut juxta 
* Ecclesia Conventualis de Novo Leco 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 Wint2n, 
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.”’-—Pvef. to Notit. Monast., p. 29. 
Besides, abbots were great personages, and too high in staticn to submit to any office 
»nder the bishop. 
