"‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ cum versiculo et oratione ‘Deus qui corda;’ declaratque licentia Fundatoris et patroni; futurum priorem eligendi concessa, et constitutione consilii generalis que incipit ‘Quia propter’ declaratis: viisque per quas possent ad hanc electionem procedere," by the decretorum doctorem, whom the canons had taken to direct them—they all and every one "dixerunt et affirmarunt se nolle ad aliquam viam procedere;"—but for this turn only, renounced their right, and unanimously transferred 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, etc., subscribed by the notary.
After the visitor had fully deliberated on the matter, he proceeded to the choice of a prior, and elected, by the following instrument, John Sharp, alias Glastenbury.
Fol. 56. Provisio Prioris per Epm.
Willmus, etc., to our beloved brother in Christ, John Sharp, alias Glastenbury, Ecclesie conventualis de Bruton, of the order of St. Austin, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, canon-regular—salutem, etc., "De tue circumspectionis industria plurimum confidentes, te virum providum et discretum, literarum scientia, et moribus merito commendandum," etc.—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 convent 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 inutiliter administrare, et administrasse usque ad presentia tempora post debitam investigationem, etc., invenit." The only time that he appointed from among the canons, he made
