OF SELBORNE. 605 



Item. " Invenient seu exhibebunt eidem unam hones- 

 tarn cameram " in the Priory, " cum focalibus necessa- 

 riis 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 

 successors, shall take an oath to observe this injunction, 

 and that before their installation. 



" Lecta et facta stint haec in quodam alto oratorio/' 

 belonging to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25, 1478, 

 in the presence 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 him- 

 self in his priorship, and in what manner he made a 

 vacancy, whether by resignation, or death, or whether 

 he was removed by the visiter, does not appear : we 

 only find that some time in the year 1484, there was no 

 prior, and that the bishop nominated 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 imper- 

 fect, 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 



