Documents concerning the dispute as to the right of election of a prior of the cathedral...

Documents concerning the dispute as to the right of election of a prior of the cathedral priory of Winchester (Hampshire).

Letter of Pope Nicholas [III] to the abbots of St Augustine's Canterbury and Glastonbury and to Master William de Salinis, canon of London. Since Brother Andrew of London, [so-called] prior of the cathedral priory of St Swithun, Winchester, has shown him that whereas election of a prior pertains to the convent of that house both by law and general custom and a papal indult, that the lawfully elected prior ought not to be removed without good cause, and that the office of sub-prior and other officers and various other ecclesiastical rights and liberties pertains to the prioracy, and that John [de Caux], late bishop of Winchester, violently ejected him from office despite having been in peaceful possession for several years, and both he and Bishop Nicholas prevented others being elected to offices, imposing their own men and promulgating sentences of excommunication against monks who resisted, or imprisoning them or putting them to exile, and turned manors, rents, rights and jurisdictions to their own uses, as well as goods both spiritual and temporal, and that they instituted rectors in churches over which the prior and convent exercised the right of patronage, for which reason the priory has incurred great costs in pursuing its case before the Curia and in the church courts of Canterbury, wherefore the Pope revokes all such causes against the prior and convent. Notwithstanding any pending appeals or other articles concerning this matter, they are to cite the parties to appear before them within three months with all relevant muniments ready to receive their ordinance in this matter, not prejudicing the prior and convent in the meantime. [St Peter's, Rome, 6 Ides April in the first year of his pontificate.]

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