OF SELBORNE. 351 



to those late governors, " quos tamen male se habuisse, et 

 " inutiliter administrare, et administrasse usque ad presentia 

 " tempora post debitam investigationem, &c. invenit." The 

 only time that he appointed from among the canons, he made 

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

 esteem and regard. 



When prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he re- 

 turned again to his former condition of canon, in which he 

 continued for some years : 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 convent ; 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 in- 

 terceded 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. con- 

 " siderantes Petrum Berne" late prior, " in administratione 

 " spiritualium et temporalium prioratus laudabiliter vixisse et 

 " rexisse ; ipsumque senio et corporis debilitate confractum ; 

 " ne in opprobrium religionis mendicari cogatur ; eidem an- 

 " nuam pcnsionem a Domino Johanne Sharp, alias Glaston- 

 " bury, priore moderno," and his successors, and, from the 

 Priory or church, to be payed every year during his life, 

 " de voluntate et ex consensu expressis," of the said John 

 S/K'i'pj "sub ea que sequitur forma verborum assignamus :" 



1st. That the said prior and his successors, for the time 

 being, honeste exhibebunt of the fruits and profits of the prior- 

 ship, " eidem esculenta et poculenta," while he remained in 

 the Priory " sub consimili portione eorundem prout conveni- 

 " enter priori," for the time being, ministrari contigerit; and 

 in like manner unifamulo, whom he should choose to wait on 

 him, as to the servientibus of the prior. 



