336 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



formam simplicis 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 commissaries, 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 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 Wynchestre, 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 versiculo et 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 Elstede, and the whole convent by their 

 proctors and nuncios appointed for the purposes, Thomas Halyborne 

 and John Stepe, required several times the assent of the elected ; 

 "et tandem post diutinas interpellationes, et delberationes, et 

 deliberationem providam penes se habitam, in hac parte divine 

 nolens, ut asseruit, resistere voluntati," within the limited time he 

 signified his acceptance in the usual written form of words. The 

 bishop is then supplicated to confirm their election, and do the 

 needful, under common seal, in the chapter-house. November 14, 

 1410. 



* 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 majus altare ecclesie deduximus. ut apud nos 

 mons es,t." 



