OF SELBORNE. 315 



active life ! Should any one doubt whether all these parti- 

 culars can relate to one and the same person, I should wish 

 him to attend to the following reasons why they might. In 

 the first place, the documents from the priory mention but 

 one Sir Adam Gurdon, who had no son lawfully begotten : 

 and in the next, we are to recollect that he must have pro- 

 bably been a man of uncommon vigour both of mind and 

 body ; since no one, unsupported by such accomplishments, 

 could have engaged in such adventures, or could have borne 

 up against the difficulties which he sometimes must have 

 encountered : and, moreover, we have modern instances of 

 persons that have maintained their abilities for near that 

 period. 



Wore we to suppose Gurdon to be only twenty years of 

 age in 1232, in 1295 he would be eighty-three; after which 

 advanced period it could not be expected that he should live 

 long. From the silence, therefore, of my evidences it seems 

 probable that this extraordinary person finished his life in 

 peace, not long after, at his mansion of Temple. Gurdon's 

 seal had for it's device a man, with a helmet on his head, 

 drawing a cross-bow; the legend, " Sigillum Ade de Gurdon'" 

 his arms were, " Goulis, iii floures argent issant de testes de 

 " leopards." k 



If the stout and unsubmitting spirit of Gurdon could be so 

 much influenced by the belief and superstition of the times, 

 much more might the hearts of his ladies and daughter. And 

 accordingly we find that Ameria, by the consent and advice 

 of her sons, though said to be all under age, makes a grant 

 for ever of some lands down by the stream at Durton; and 

 also of her right of the common of Durton itself. 1 Johanna, 

 the daughter and heiress of Sir Adam, was married, I find, 

 to Richard Achard; she also grants to the prior and convent 

 lands and tenements in the village of Selbome, which her 

 father obtained from Thomas Maker el; and also all her goods 



k From the collection of Thomas Martin, Esq. in the Antiquarian Re- 

 pertory, p. 109, N XXXI. 



1 Durton, now called Dot-ton, is still a common for the copyholders of 

 Selbome manor. 



