400 
ANTIQUITIES 
The reason for this difference seems to have been^ that_, in 
the first case, though in years, he might have been hale and 
capable of taking his share in the duty of the convent ; in 
the second, he was broken with age, and no longer equal to 
the functions of a canon. 
Impressed with this idea the bishop very benevolently 
interceded in his favour, and laid his injunctions on the new 
elected prior in the following manner. 
Fol. 56. " In Dei nomine Amen. "Nos Willmus, &c. 
considerantes Petrum Berne,''^ late prior in administratione 
spiritualium et temporalium prioratus laudabiliter vixisse et 
rexisse ; ipsumque senio et corporis debilitate confractum ; 
ne in opprobrium religionis mendicari cogatur ; — eidem 
annuam pensionem a Domino Johanne Sharp, alias Glaston- 
bury, priore moderno,^^ and his successors, and, from the 
Priory or church, to be paid every year during his life, de 
voluntate et ex consensu expressis of the said John Sharp, 
sub ea que sequitur forma verborum — assignamus : 
I'st. That the said prior and his successors, for the time 
being, honeste exhibebunt of the fruits and profits of the 
priorship, eidem esculenta et potulenta,'^ while he re- 
mained in the Priory, sub consimili portione eorundem 
prout convenienter priori/^ for the time being, ministrari 
contigerit ; and in like manner ^ln^ famulo, whom he should 
choose to wait on him, as to the servientibus of the prior. 
Item. ^^Invenient sen exhibebunt eidem unam honestam 
cameram in the Priory, " cum focalibus necessariis sen 
opportunis ad eundem.^' 
Item. We will, ordain, &c. to the said P. Berne an 
annual pension of ten marks, from the revenue of the Priory, 
to be paid by the hands of the prior quarterly. 
The bishop decrees farther, that John Sharp, and hi 
successors, shall take an oath to observe this injunction, and 
that before their installation. 
Lecta et facta sunt haec in quodam alto oratorio,'' be- 
longing to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25, 1478, in the 
presence of John Sharp, who gave his assent, and then 
took the oath before witnesses, with the other oaths before 
the chancellor, who decreed he should be inducted and in- 
stalled ; as was done that same day. 
