370 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



John Wynchestre, senior, the sub-prior, in his own behalf and 

 that of all the canons, and by their mandate, " quasdam moni- 

 cionem et protestacionem in scriptis redactas fecit, legit, et inter- 

 posuit " that all persons disqualified, or not having right to be 

 present, should immediately withdraw; and protesting against 

 their voting, &c. that then having read the constitution of the 

 general council " Quia propter," and explained the modes of 

 proceeding to election, they agreed unanimously to proceed " per 

 viam seu formam simplicis compromissi ;" when John Wyn- 

 chestre, sub-prior, and all the others (the commissaries under- 

 named excepted) named and chose brothers Richard Elstede, 

 Thomas Halyborne, John Lemyngton the sacrist, John Stepe, 

 chantor, and Richard Putworth, canons, to be commissaries, who 

 were sworti each to nominate and elect a fit person to be prior : 

 and empowered by letters patent under the common seal, to be 

 in force only until the darkness of the night of the same day ; 

 that they, or the greater part of them, should elect for the whole 

 convent, within the limited time, from their own number, or from 

 the rest of the convent ; that one of them should publish their 

 consent in common before the clergy and people : they then all 

 promised to receive as prior the person these five canons should 

 fix on. These commissaries seceded from the chapter-house to 

 the refectory of the Priory, and were shut in with master John 

 Penkester, bachelor of laws ; and John Couke and John Lynne, 

 perpetual vicars of the parish churches of Newton and Selborne ; 

 and with Sampson Maycock, a public notary ; where they treated 

 of the election ; when they unanimously agreed on John Wyn- 

 chestre, and appointed Thomas Halyborne, to choose him in 

 common for all, and to publish the election, as customary ; and 

 returned long before it was dark to the chapter-house, where 

 Thomas Halyborne read publicly the instrument of election; 

 when all the brothers, the new prior excepted, singing solemnly 

 the hymn "Te Deum laudamus," fecerunt deportari novum 

 electum, by some of the brothers, from the chapter-house to the 

 high altar of the church ;* and the hymn being sung, dictisque 

 versiculoet oratione consuetis in hac parte, Thomas Halyborne, 

 mox tune ibidem, before the clergy and people of both sexes 

 solemnly published the election in vulgari. Then Richard El- 

 stede, and the whole convent by their proctors and nuncios ap- 



* It seems here as if the canons used to chair their new-elected prior from the chapter-house 

 to the high altar of their convent-church. In letter^XXI., on the same occasion, it is said "et 

 sic canentes dictum electum ad niajus altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud nos moris est." 



