352 ANTIQUITIES 



Item. " Invenient seu exhibebunt eidem unam honestam 

 " cameram " in the Priory, " cum focalibus necessariis seu 

 " opportunis ad eundem." 



Item. " We will, ordain, &c. to the said P. Berne, an annual 

 " 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 suc- 

 cessors, shall take an oath to observe this injunction, and that 

 before their installation. 



" Lecta et facta sunt haec in quodam alto oratorio," belong- 

 ing to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25, 1478, in the pre- 

 sence 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, whe- 

 ther 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 nomi- 

 nated 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 



