584 ANTIQUITIES 



compromissi;" when John Wynchestre, 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 commis- 

 saries, who were sworn 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 num- 

 ber, 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 mas- 

 ter 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 Wynchestre, 

 and appointed Thomas Halyborne, to choose him in 

 common for all, and to publish the election, as cus- 

 tomary; and returned long before it was dark to the 

 chapter-house, where Thomas Halyborne read pub- 

 licly 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 1 ; and the hymn being sung, 

 dictisque versiculo et oratione consuetis in hacparte, Thomas 

 Halyborne, mox tune ibidem, before the clergy and peo- 

 ple of both sexes solemnly published the election in 



1 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 inajus altare ecclesie deiluximus, ut apud uos inoris est." 



