XXII.] OF SELBORNE. 225 



runt et affirmarunt se nolle ad aliquam viam procedere : " but, 

 for this turn only, renounced their right, and unanimously trans- 

 ferred their power to the bishop, the ordinary of the place, 

 promising to receive whom he should provide; and appointed a 

 proctor to present the instrument to the bishop under their seal ; 

 and required their notary to draw it up in due form, &c. 

 subscribed by the notary. 



After the visitor had fully deliberated on the matter, he pro- 

 ceeded to the choice of a prior, and elected, by the following 

 instrument, John Sharp, alias Glastonbury. 



Fol. 56. PEOVISIO PEIORIS PER EPM. 



Willmns, &c. to our beloved brother in CHRIST, John Sharp, 

 alias Glastonbury, Ecclesie conventualis de Bruton, of the order 

 of St. Austin, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, canon-regular 

 salutem, &c. " De tue circumspectionis industria plurimum con- 

 h'dentes, te virum provjdum et discretum, literarum scientia, et 

 moribus merito commendandum," &c. do appoint you prior 

 under our seal. " Dat. in manerio nostro de Suthwaltham, May 

 20, 1478, et nostre Consec. 31." 



Thus did the bishop, three times out of the four that he was 

 at liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a distance, a 

 stranger to the place, to govern the convent of Selborne, hoping 

 by this method to have broken the cabal, and to have interrupted 

 that habit of mismanagement that had pervaded the society : but 

 he acknowledges, in an evidence lying before us, that he never 

 did succeed to his wishes with respect to those late governors, 

 "quos tamen male se habuisse, et inutiliter administrare, et 

 administrasse usque ad presentia tempora post debitam investi- 

 gationem, &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 returned 

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

 for some years : but when he was rechosen, 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 

 VOL. II. GO 



