XXIII.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



227 



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

 creed 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 nude 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 Ash- 

 ford to fill the vacancy. 



LETTER XXIII. 



THIS Thomas Ashford was most undoubtedly the last prior of 

 Sclborne; 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 Eeligious Houses, 

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

 ISut 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 list is much corrected and improved ; and the reader may 

 depend on its being thenceforward very exact. 



A List of the Priors of Selborne Priory, from Brown Willis's 

 Principals of Religious Houses, with additions within [ ] by 

 the Author. 



[John - - was prior, sine dat. 1 ] 

 Nich. de Cantia el 1262. 



1 See, in Letter XI. of these Antiquities, the reason why prior John , 



who had transactions with the Knight Templars, is placed in the list before 

 the year 1262. 



