XII.] OF SELBORNE. 197 



among many other brothers, but subscribes with a kind of 

 difference, as if, for the time being, his office rendered him an 

 inferior in the community. 1 



LETTER XII. 



THE ladies and daughters of Sir Adam Gurdon were not the 

 only benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne ; for, in the year 

 1281, Ela Longspee obtained masses to be performed for her 

 soul's health ; and the prior entered into an engagement that 

 one of the convent should every day say a special mass for ever 

 for the said benefactress, whether living or dead. She also 

 engaged within five years to pay to the said convent one hundred 

 marks of silver for the support of a chantry and chantry- 

 chaplain, who should perform his masses daily in the parish 

 church of Selborne. 2 In the east end of the south aisle there 

 there are two sharp-pointed Gothic niches ; one of these pro- 

 bably was the place under which these masses were performed ; 

 and there is the more reason to suppose as much, because till 



1 In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald s Hospital in the 

 city of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, p. 227 and 228, of his Collections 

 for the History of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and preceptoria 

 signify the mastership of the said hospital : " ad preceptorium sive magis- 

 terium presentavit prccepforii sive magisterii patronus. Vacavit dicta prt- 

 ceptoria seu magisterium ad preceptoriam et regimen dicti hospitalis Te 

 preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus." 



Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably mean 

 the master's lodgings, or at least the preceptor's apartment, whatsoever may 

 have been the office or employment of the said preceptor. 



A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby's " Ducatus Leodinensis," or History 

 of Leeds, p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and chaplain before 

 dates were inserted. Pu Fresne's Supplement : " Preceptorial, pnedia pre,- 

 ceptoribiiii assignata," Cowell, in his Law Dictionary, enumerates sixteen 

 preceptoria, or preceptories, in England ; but Sudington is not among them. 

 It is remarkable that Gurtelems, in his " Historia Templariorum Amstel." 

 1G91, never once mentions the words preceptor or preceptorium. 



8 A chantry was a chapel joined to some cathedral or parish church, anil 

 endowed with annual revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests to 

 sing mass daily for the soul of the founder, and others. 



