XXIL] OF SELBORNE. 533 
runt et affirmarunt se nolle ad aliquani viani procedere : "— but, 
for this turn only, renounced tlieir right, and unanimously trans- 
ferred 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 tlie visitor had fully deliberated on the matter, he pro- 
ceeded to the choice of a prior, and elected, by the following 
instrument, John Sharp, alias Glastonbury. 
Fob 56. rKOVisio Pkiorls per Epm. 
Willmus, &c. to our beloved brother in Christ, J-ohn Sharp, 
alias Glastonbury, 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 con- 
fidentes, te virnm 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 couA^ent of Selborne, hoping 
by this method to have broken the cabal, and to have interrupted 
that habit of mismanagement 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 inutiHter administrare, et 
administrasse usque ad presentia tempora post debitam investi- 
gationem, &c. invenit." The only time that he ai)pointed from 
among the canons, he made choice of Peter Berne, for whom he 
had conceived the greatest esteem and regard. 
When Prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he returned 
again to his former condition of canon, in wdiich he continued 
for some years : but when he was rechosen, and had abdicated a 
second time, Ave find him in a forlorn state, and in danger of 
being reduced to beggary, liad not the Bishop of Winchester 
