248 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



declared the priorship void ; " et priorat. solacio destitutum esse ; " 

 and granted his letters for proceeding to a new election ; when all the 

 religious, assembed in the chapter-house, did transfer their power under 

 their seal to the bishop, by the following public instrument. 



"In Dei nomine Amen," &c. A.D. 1478, Maii 19. In the chapter- 

 house for the election of a prior for that day, on the free resignation of 

 Peter Berne, having celebrated in the first place mass at the high altar 

 " De spiritu sancto," and having called a chapter by tolling a bell, ut 

 moris est; in the presence of a notary and witnesses appeared personally 

 Peter Berne, Thomas Ashford, Stephen Clydgrove, and John Ashton, 

 presbyters, and Henry Canwood,* in chapter assembled; and after 

 singing the hymn " ' Veni Creator Spiritus,' cum versiculo et oratione 

 ' Deus qui corda;' declaratque licentia Fundatoris et patroni ; futurum 

 priorem eligendi concessa, et constitutione consilii generalis que incipit 

 ' Quiapropter' declaratis : viisque per quas possent ad hanc electionem 

 procedere," by the decretorum doctorem, whom the canons had taken to 

 direct them they all and every one " dixerunt et affirmarunt se nolle 

 ad aliquam yiam procedere ; " but for this turn only, renounced their 

 right, and unanimously transferred their power to the bishop, the 

 ordinary of the place, promising to receive whom he should provide ; 

 and appointed a proctor to present the instrument to the bishop under 

 their seal ; and required their notary to draw it up in due form, &c. 

 subscribed by the notary. 



After the visitor had fully deliberated on the matter, he proceeded to 

 the choice of a prior, and elected, by the following instrument, John 

 Sharp, alias Glastenbury. 



Fol. 56. PROVISIO PKIORIS per EPM. 



Willmusy &c., to our beloved brother in Christ, John Sharp, alias 

 Glastenbury, Ecclesie conventualis de Bruton, of the order of 

 St. Austin, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, canon-regular salutem, 

 &c., "De tue circumspectionis industria plurimum confidentes, te 

 virum providum et discretum, literarum scientia, et moribus merito 

 commendandum," &c. do appoint you prior under our seal. " Dat. 

 in manerio nostro de Suthwaltham, May 20," 1478, "et nostre 

 Consec. 31." 



Thus did the bishop, three times out of the four that he was at 

 liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a distance, a stranger to the 

 place, to govern the convent of Selborne, hoping by this method to 

 have broken the cabal, and to have interrupted that habit of mis- 

 management that had pervaded the society ; but he acknowledges, in 

 an evidence lying before us, that he never did succeed to his wishes 

 with respect to those late governors, " quos tamen male se habuisse, 

 et inutiliter administrare, et administrasse usque ad presentia tempora 



* Here we see that all the canons were changed in six years ; and that there 

 was quite a new chapter, Berne excepted, between 1472 and 1478 ; for, instead 

 of Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, Clydgrove, Ashton, and 

 Canwood, all new men, who were soon gone in their turn off the stage, and are 

 heard of no more. For, in six years after, there seem to hare been no canons 

 at all. 



