Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/371

Rh said priory, and empowering him to collect and receive the profits and revenues and “alia bona” of the said priory; and to exercise in every respect the full power and authority of a prior; but to be responsible to the visitor finally, and to maintain this superiority during the bishop’s pleasure only. This instrument is dated from the bishop’s manor-house in Southwark, March ist, 1453-4, and the seventh of his consecration.

After this transaction it does not appear that the chapter of the Priory proceeded to any election; on the contrary, we find that at six months’ end from the vacancy the visitor declared that a lapse had taken place; and that therefore he did confer the priorship on canon Peter Berne—“Prioratum vacantem et ad nostram collationem, seu provisionem jure ad nos in hac parte per lapsum temporis legitime devoluto spectantem, tibi (sc. P. Berne) de legitimo matrimonio procreato, &c.,—conferimus,” etc. This deed bears date July 28th, 1454.—Reg. Waynflete, tom. I. p. 69.

On February 8th, 1462, the visitor issued out a power of sequestration against the priory of Selborne on account of notorious dilapidations, which threatened manifest ruin to the roofs, walls, and edifices, of the said convent; and appointing John Hammond, B.D., rector of the parish church of Hetlegh, John Hylling, vicar of the parish church of Newton Valence, and Walter Gorfin, inhabitant of the parish of Selborne, his sequestrators, to exact, collect, levy, and receive, all the profits and revenues of the said convent: he adds “ac ea sub arcto, et tuto custodiatis, custodirive faciatis;” as they would answer it to the bishop at their peril.

In consequence of these proceedings Prior Berne, on the last day of February, and the next year, produced a state of the revenues of the Priory, No. 381, called “A paper conteyning the value of the manors and lands pertayning to the Priory of Selborne, 4 Edward III., with a note of charges yssuing out of it.”

This is a curious document, and will appear in the Appendix. From circumstances in this paper it is plain that the sequestration produced good effects; for in it are to be found bills of repairs to a considerable amount.

By this evidence also it appears that there were at that juncture