344 ANTIQUITIES 



mandate citing any one who would gainsay the said election 

 to appear before the bishop or his commissary in his chapel 

 at Farnham on the second day of May next. The dean of the 

 deanery of Aulton then appeared before the chancellor, his 

 commissary, and returned the citation or mandate dated 

 April 22d, 1468, with signification, in writing, of his having 

 published it as required, dated Newton Valence, May 1st, 

 1468. This certificate being read, the four canons of Sel- 

 borne appeared and required the election to be confirmed ; et 

 ex super abundanti appointed William Long their proctor to 

 solicit in their name that he might be canonically confirmed. 

 John Morton also appeared, and proclamation was made ; and 

 no one appearing against him, the commissary pronounced all 

 absentees contumacious, and precluded them from objecting 

 at any other time ; and, at the instance of John Morton and 

 the proctor, confirmed the election by his decree, and directed 

 his mandate to the rector of Hedley and the vicar of Newton 

 Valence to install him in the usual form. 



Thus, for the first time, was a person, a stranger to the 

 convent of Selborne, and never canon of that monastery, 

 elected prior; though the style of the petitions in former 



elections used to run thus, " Yos rogamus quatinus 



" eligendum ex nobis unum confratrem de gremio nostro, 

 (C licentiam vestram nobis concedere dignemini." 



LETTER XX. 



PKIOR Morton dying in 1471, two canons, by themselves, pro- 

 ceeded to election, and chose a prior ; but two more (one of 

 them Berne) complaining of not being summoned, objected to 

 the proceedings as informal ; till at last the matter was com- 

 promised that the bishop should again, for that turn, nominate 

 as he had before. But the circumstances of this election will 

 be best explained by the following extract : 



