OF SELBORNE. 
397 
Fol. 56. Pro visi o Pri oRi s per Epm. 
Willmus, &c. to our beloved brother in Christ John Sharp, 
alia' Glqftenbury, Ecclefie conventualis de Brum, of the order of 
St. Ai'Jlin, in the diocefe of Bat b 3.nd Wells, canon-regular — falutem 
&c. " De tue circumfpedionis induflria plurimum confidentes, 
" te virum providum et difcretum, literarum fcientia, et moribus 
*' merito commendandum," &c. — do appoint you prior — under 
our feal. " Dat. in manerio noftro de Suthzvaltham, May 20," 1478, 
et noftre Confec. 31. 
Thus did the biQiop, three times out of the four that he was at 
liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a dillance, a flranger 
to the place, to govern the convent Selborne, hoping by this 
method to have broken the cabal, and to have interrupted that 
habit of mifmanngement that had pervaded the fociety : but he 
acknowledges, in an evidence lying before us, that he never did 
faceed to his wifhes with refpe<5t to thofe late governors, — " quos 
*' tamen male fe habuifle, et inutilittr adminiftrare, et admini- 
ftraiie ufque ad prefcntia tempora poft debitam inveftigationem, 
" &c. invenit." The only time that he appointed from among 
the canons, he made choice of Peter Berne, for whom he had con- 
ceived the greateft efteem and regard. 
When prior Berne firil relinq'Jiihed his prlorfhip, he returned 
again to his formxCr condition of canon, in which he continued for 
fome years : but v/hen he was rc-chofen, and had abdicated a fecond 
time, we find him in a forlorn ftate, and in danger of being re- 
duced to beggary, had not the bifhop of }Vinchefier interpofed in 
his favour, and with great humanity infifted on a provilloi^ for 
him 
