ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
369 
towns, where there were shrines of saints, were liable to be in- 
truded on by travellers, devotees, and pilgrims ; and were sub- 
ject to the importunity of the poor, who swarmed at their gates 
to partake of doles and broken victuals. Of these disadvantages 
some convents used to complain, and especially those at Canter- 
bury ; but this Priory, from its sequestered situation, could 
seldom be subject to either of these inconveniences, and therefore 
we must attribute its frequent debts and embarrassments, well 
endowed as it was, to the bad conduct of its members, and a 
general inattention to the interests of the institution. 
LETTER XVI. 
Beaufort was bishop of Winchester from 1405 to 1447 ; and 
yet, notwithstanding this long episcopate, only tom. I. of Beau- 
fortes Register is to be found. This loss is much to be regretted, 
as it must unavoidably make a gap in the history of Selborne 
Priory, and perhaps in the list of its priors. 
In 1410 there was an election for a prior, and again in 1411. 
In vol. I. p. 24, of Beaufort's Register, is the instrument of 
the election of John Wynchestre to be prior^ — the substance as 
follows : 
Richard Elstede, senior canon, signifies to the bishop that 
brother Thomas Weston, the late prior, died October 18th, 1410, 
and was buried November 11th. — ^That the bishop's license to 
elect having been obtained, he and the whole convent met in the 
chapter-house, on the same day, about the hour of vespers, to 
consider of the election :— that brother John Wynchestre, then 
sub-prior, with the general consent, appointed the 12th of No- 
vember, ad horam ejusdem diei capitularem, for the business : — 
when they met in the chapter-house, post miss am de sancto 
Spiritu, solemnly celebrated in the church; — to wit, Richard 
Elstede ; Thomas Halyborne ; John Lemyngton, sacrista ; John 
Stepe, cantor ; Walter Ffarnham ; Richard Putworth, celerarius ; 
Hugh London ; Henry Brampton, alias Brompton ; J ohn Wyn- 
chestre, senior ; John Wynchestre, junior ; — then " Proposito 
primitus verbo Dei," and then ympno " Veni Creator Spiritus " 
being solemnly sung, cum " versiculo et oratione," as usual, and 
his letter of licence, with the appointment of the hour and place 
of election, being read, alta voce, in valvis of the chapter-house ; 
2 B 
