358 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



ment its income by putting it in possession of the estates belonging 

 to the priory of Selborne, now become a deserted convent, without 

 canons or prior. The president and fellows state the circum- 

 stances of their numerous institution and scanty provision and the 

 ruinous and perverted condition of the priory. The bishop ap- 

 points commissaries to inquire into the state of the said monastery ; 

 and, if found expedient, to confirm the appropriation of it to the 

 college, which soon after appoints attorneys to take possession, 

 September 24, 1484. But the way to give the reader a thorough 

 insight respecting this transaction, will be to transcribe a farther 

 proportion of the process of the impropriation from the beginning, 

 which will lay open the manner of proceeding, and show the consent 

 of the parties. 



IMPROPRIATIO SELBORNE, 1485. 



" Universis sancte matris ecclesie filiis, &c. Ricardus Dei gratia 

 prior ecclesie conventualis de Novo Loco, &c.,* ad universitatem 

 vestre notitie deducimus, &c., quod eoram nobis commissario pre- 

 dicto in ecclesia parochiali S d . Georgii de Esher, Diet. Winton. 

 dioc. 3. die Augusti, A.D. 1485. Indictione tertia pontificat. In- 

 nocenti 8 vl . ann. i mo . judicialiter comparuit venerabilis vir Jacobus 

 Preston, S. T. P. infrascriptus, et exhibuit literas comissionis 

 quas quidem per magistrum Thomam Somercrotes notarium publi- 

 cum, &c., legi fecimus, tenorem sequentem in se continentes." 

 The same as in No. 103, but dated" In manerio nostro de Esher, 

 Augusti i mi . A.D. 1485, et nostre confec. anno 39." [No 103 is 

 repeated in a book containing the like process in the preceding 

 year by the same commissary, in the parish church of St. Andrew 

 the Apostle, at Farnham, Sept 6th, anno 1434.] " Post quarum 

 literarum lecturam dictus magister Jacobus Preston, quasdam 

 procuratorias literas mag. Richardi Mayhewe presidentis, ut asseruit, 

 collegii beate Marie Magdalene, &c., sigillo rotundo communi, c., 

 in cera rubea impresso sigillatas realiter exhibuit, &c., et pro 

 eisdem dnis suis, c., fecit se partem, ac nobis supplicavit ut juxta 



* Ecclesia Conventualis de Novo l>co was the monastery afterwards called the New 

 Minster, or Abbey of Hyde, in the city of Winchester. Should any intelligent reader 

 wonder to see that the prior of Hyde Abbey was commissary to the Bishop of Wint in, 

 and should conclude that there was a mistake in titles, and that the abbot must have been 

 here meant : he will be pleased to recollect that this person was the second in rank ; for, . 

 "next under the abbot, in every abbey, was the prior." Pref. to Notit. Monast., p. 29. 

 Besides, abbots were great personages, and too high in station to submit to any office 

 under the bishop. 



