518 
THE ANTIQUITIES 
[LETT. 
own behalf and that of all the canons, and by their mandate, 
" quasdam monicionem et protestacioneni in scrip tis redactas 
fecit, legit, et interposuit — that all persons disqualified, or not 
having right to be present, should immediately withdraw ; and 
protesting against their voting, &c. — that then having read the 
constitution of the general council " Quia propter/' and explained 
the modes of proceeding to election, they agreed unanimously to 
proceed " per viam sen formam simplicis compromissi ; " when 
John Wynchestre, sub-prior, and all the others (the commissaries 
undernamed excepted) named and chose brothers Eichard Els- 
tede, Thomas Halyborne, John Lemyngton the sacrist, John 
Stepe, chantor, and Eichard Putworth, canons, to be commis- 
saries, who were sworn each to nominate and elect a fit person 
to be prior : and einpowered 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 iSTewton and Selborne ; and with Sampson Maycock, a public 
notary ; where they treated of the election ; when they unani- 
mously 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," 
feceriint deportari novum eledum, by some of the brothers, from 
the chapter-house to the high altar of the church ; ^ and the 
^ 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 
a] tare ecclesie chduximus, ut apud nos moris est." 
