342 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



their mandate, " quasdam monicionem et protestacionem in scriptis 

 redactas fecit, legit, interposuit " that all persons disqualified, or 

 not having right to be present, should immediately withdraw, and 

 protesting against their voting, etc. ; that then having read the 

 constitution of the general council " Quia propter," and explained 

 the modes of proceeding to election, they agreed unanimously to 

 proceed "per viam seu formam simplicis compromissi ; " when 

 John Wynchestre, sub-prior, and all the others (the commissaries 

 undernamed 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 con- 

 vent, 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 re- 

 fectory 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 deportari novum electum, by some of the 

 brothers from the chapter-house to the high altar of the church ; * 

 and the hymn being sung, dictisque versiculo et oratione consuetis in 



* It seems here as if the canons used to chair their new elected prior from 

 the chapter-house to the high altar of their Convent Church. In Letter XXI., 

 on the same occasion it is said " et sic canentes dictum electum ad majas 

 altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud nos moris est." 



