ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 359 



pension of ten marks, from the revenue of the priory, to be paid 

 by the hands of the prior quarterly. 



The Bishop decrees farther, that John Sharp, and his successors, 

 shall take an oath to observe this injunction, and that before their 

 installation. 



" Lecta et facta sunt hsec in quodam alto oratorio," belonging 

 to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25th, 1478, in the presence 

 of John Sharp, who gave his assent, and then took the oath 

 before witnesses, with the other oaths before the chancellor, who 

 decreed he should be inducted and installed, as was done that 

 same day. 



How John Sharp, alias Glastonbury, acquitted himself in his 

 priorship, and in what manner he made a vacancy, whether by 

 resignation, or death, or whether he was removed by the visitor, 

 does not appear ; we only find that some time in the year 1484 

 there was no prior, and that the bishop nominated Canon Ashford 

 to fill the vacancy. 



LETTER, XXIII. 



THIS Thomas Ashford was most undoubtedly the last prior of 

 Selborne ; and, therefore, here will be the proper place to say 

 something concerning a list of the priors, and to endeavour to 

 improve that already given by others. 



At the end of Bishop Tanner's " Notitia Monastica," the folio 

 edition, among Brown Willis's " Principals of Religious Houses," 

 occur the names of eleven of the priors of Selborne, with dates. 

 But this list is imperfect, and particularly at the beginning; 

 for though the priory was founded in 1232, yet it commences 

 with Nich. de Cantia, elected in 1262, so that, for the first thirty 

 years, no prior is mentioned ; yet there must have been one or 

 more. We were in hopes that the register of Peter de Rupibus 

 would have rectified this omission ; but, when it was examined, no 

 information of the sort was to be found. From the year 1410 the 



