OF SELBORNE. 317 



at 8tt</!nf/fon, now called Soutkmgton, 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 

 Ittois, bishop of Winchester, and South Badeisley, a preceptory 

 of the Knights Templars, and afterwards of St. John of Jeru- 

 salem ,, valued at one hundred and eighteen pounds sixteen 

 shillings and seven pence 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 ham- 

 let contains now only one mean farm-house, though there 

 wero 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 



occasion those societies of Hospitalars also to be indifferently called 

 preceptories, which had originally been vested in them, having never 

 belonged to the Templars at all. See in Archer, p. 609. Tanner, p. 300. 

 col. 1. 720. note c. 



It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hos- 

 pitalars holds the same language j for there, in the enumeration of par- 

 ticulars, occur " commandries, preceptories." Codex, p. 1190. Now this 

 intercommunity of names, and that in an act of parliament too, made 

 some of our ablest antiquaries look upon a preceptory and commandry as 

 strictly synonymous ; accordingly we find Camden, in his Britannia, 

 explaining prceceptoria in the text by a commandry in the margin, p. 356, 

 510. J. L. 



Commandry, a manor or chief messuage with lands, &c. 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 JSrucre in Lincolnshire, &c. Preceptories were 

 possessed by the more eminent sort of Templars, whom the chief master 

 created and called Prccceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to Stephens 

 do Jurisd. lib. 4. c. 10. num. 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. 

 ll et Ma.gr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emendasse panis, & suis [cere- 

 " visiee] in Sodinyton, & uescint q. war. et et magist. Milicie Templi 

 *' non ven io di c lr.'' Chapter-house, Westminster. 



