532 
THE ANTIQUITIES 
[LETT. 
chosen in 1472, lie slionld not long maintain his station ; as old 
age was then coming fast upon him, and the increasing anarchy 
and misrule of that declining institution required unusual 
vigour and resolution to stem that torrent of profligacy which 
was hurrying it on to its dissolution. We find, accordingly, 
that in 1478 he resigned his dignity again into the hands of 
the bishop. 
Waynflete Eeg. Fol. 55. 
Resignatio Prioris de Seleborne. 
^fay 14, 1478. Peter Berne resigned the priorship. May 16, 
the bishop admitted his resignation " in manerio suo de Wal- 
tham," and declared the priorship void ; et priorat. solacio 
destitutum esse ; " and granted his letters for proceeding to a 
new election : when all the religious, assembled 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, Mali 19. In the chapter- 
house for the election of a prior for that day,(»n 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, iit moris est ; in the presence of a notary and wit- 
nesses 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 ;' 
declarataque licentia Fundatoris et patroni; futurum priorem 
eligendi concessa, et constitutione consilii generalis que incipit 
' Quia proiiter ' declaratis ; viisque per quas possent ad hanc 
electionem procedere," by the decrdoriim doctorem, whom the 
canons had taken to direct them — they all and every one " dixe- 
^ 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, in- 
stead of Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, Clydgrove, Ash- 
ton, 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 have 
been no canons at all. 
