52 PAPE15S, ETC. 



hood niight be thus separated. But tlielr union vvith the 

 Oi'der itself was never, that I can discover, broken. And 

 the fact that they are called Xuns of the Order of S. 

 Augustine is not to be understood as mihtating agalnst this 

 viewj inasmuch as the Hospitalars, as well as the Templars, 

 were members of that numerous body of Conventual 

 Societies which accepted the rule of S. Austin as the guide 

 of thelr religious life. Tanner's subsequent assertion that 

 " it doth not appear when or by whom the Preceptory was 

 founded, but some have thought it more ancient than the 

 Nunnery," is so fully answered in the previous pages that 

 it need not occupy us further. 



Another and very conclusive evidence, at once of their 

 obedientiary position and of their unbroken union vvilh the 

 Order, is exhibited in the fact that from beginning to end 

 they did not so much as present to their appropriated 

 rectories. I have recovered the following names of the 

 incumbents of the parishes down to the time of the Sup- 

 pression, and doubt not that, to the local reader especially, 

 the lists, however imperfect, will be objects of considcrable 

 interest. It will be seen that the Prior of England, and 

 neither the Prioress nor the Preceptor of Buckland, was 

 the patron in every instance : — 



Incumbents of North Petherton: — John de IMessingham, 

 4th March, 1309-10; Laurence de Chcrleton, lOthOctober, 

 1310; William de Dychton, 2nd August, 1313.* These were 

 presented by Prior William de Tothaie. Thomas de Fox- 

 tone, 6th September, 1332 ; presented by Prior Leonard 

 de Tybertis. Nicholas de Somerton, 15th December, 

 1342; Nicholas de la Mor, 3rd October, 1345 ; William de 

 Avene, 26th April, 1347; Keginald de Fardyngeston, 24th 



* MS. Tlarl. fiOGt, p!>. 10, 12, 51. 



