358 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



choice of Peter Berne, lor whom he had conceived the greatest 

 esteem and regard. 



When Prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he returned 

 again to his former condition of canon, in which he continued for 

 some years j but when he was re-chosen, and had abdicated a 

 second time, we find him in a forlorn state, and in danger of 

 being reduced to beggary, had not the Bishop of Winchester 

 interposed in his favour, and with great humanity insisted on a 

 provision for him for life. The reason for this difference seems 

 to have been, that, in the first case, though in years, he might have 

 been hale and capable of taking his share in the duty of the con- 

 vent j in the second he was broken with age, and no longer equal 

 to the functions of a canon. 



Impressed with this idea, the bishop very benevolently inter- 

 ceded in his favour, and laid his injunctions on the new-elected 

 prior in the following manner : 



Fol. 56. " In Dei nomine Amen. Nos Willmus, &c., consi- 

 derantes Petrum Berne," late prior, "in administratione spiritualium 

 et temporalium prioratus laudabiliter vixisse et rexisse ; ipsumque 

 senio et corporis debilitate confractum; ne in opprobrium reli- 

 gionis mendicari cogatur ; eidem annuam pensionem a Domino 

 Johanne Sharpe, alias Glastonbury, priore moderno," and his 

 successors, and, from the priory or church, to be paid every 

 year during his life, "de voluntate et ex consensu expressis" 

 of the said John Sharp, " sub ea que sequitur forma verborum 

 assignamus : " 



i st. That the said prior and his successors, for the time being, 

 honeste exhibebunt of the fruits and profits of the priorship, " eidem 

 esculenta et poculenta," while he remained in the priory, " sub 

 consimili portione eorundem prout convenientur priori," for the 

 time being, ministrari contigerit ; and in like manner uni famulo, 

 whom he should choose to wait on him, as to the servientibus of 

 the prior. 



Item. " Invenient seu exhibebunt eidem unam honestam 

 cameram," in the priory, " cum socalibus necessariis seu oppor- 

 tunis ad eundem." 



Item. We will, ordain, etc, to the said P. Berne an annual 



