

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 325 



letter, had considerable property in Selborne; and also a pre- 

 ceptory at Sudington, now called Southington, a hamlet lying one 

 mile to the east of the village. Bishop Tanner mentions only 

 two such houses of the Templars in all the county of Southampton, 

 viz., Godesfield, founded by Henry de Blois, bishop of Winchester, 

 and South Badeisley, a preceptory of the Knights Templars, and 

 afterwards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued at one hundred and 

 eighteen pounds sixteen shillings and sevenpence per annum. 

 Here then was a preceptory unnoticed by antiquaries, between 

 the village and Temple. Whatever the edifice of the preceptory 

 might have been, it has long since been dilapidated; and the 

 whole hamlet contains now only one mean farm-house, though 

 there were two in the memory of man. 



It has been usual for the religious of different orders to fall into 

 great dissensions, and especially when they were near neighbours. 

 Instances of this sort we have heard of between the monks of 

 Canterbury ; and again between the old abbey of St. Swythun, 



ceptories, which had originally been vested in them, having never belonged to 

 the Templars at all. See in ARCHER, p. 609 ; TANNER, p. 300, col. I, 720, n.e. 



It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hospitalars 

 holds the same language ; for there, in the enumeration of particulars occur 

 " commandries, preceptories." CODEX, p. 1190. Now this intercommunity 

 of names, and that in an Act of Parliament too, made some of our ablest anti- 

 quaries look upon a preceptory and command ry as strictly synonymous ; ac- 

 cordingly we find Camden, in his " Britannia,'' explaining prseceptoria in the 

 text by a command ry in the margin, p. 356. 510. J. L. 



Commandry, a manor or chief messuage with lands, etc., belonging to the 

 priory of St. John of Jerusalem ; and he who had the government of such 

 house was called the commander, who could not dispose of it but to the use of 

 the priory, only taking thence his own sustenance, according to his degree, who 

 was usually a brother of the same priory. COWELL. He adds (confounding 

 these with preceptories) they are in many places termed temples, as Temple 

 Bruere in Lincolnshire, etc. Preceptories were possessed by the more eminent 

 sort of Templars, whom the chief master created and called Praeceptores Templi. 

 COWELL, who refers to STEPHENS De Jurisd. lib. iv. c. 10, no. 27. 



Placita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de Roff et sociis suis justic. Itiner. 

 apud Wynton, &c., anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo. "et 

 Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emendasse panis, et suis [cerevisiae] in Sodin^- 

 ton, et nescint q. war. et et magist. Milicie Templi non ven id distr." Chapter 

 House ) Westminster. 



