286 THE ANTIQUITIES 



Ameria, and Agnes. The first of these ladies, who was 

 the companion of his middle life, seems to have been a 

 person of considerable fortune, which she inherited from 

 Thomas Makerel, a gentleman of Selborne, who was either 

 her father or uncle. The second, Ameria, calls herself the 

 quondam wife of Sir Adam, " quae fui uxor," etc. and talks 

 of her sons under age. Now Gurdon had no son : and 

 beside Agnes in another document says, " Ego Agnes 

 quondam uxor Domini Adae Gurdon in pura et ligea 

 viduitate mea" : but Gurdon could not leave two widows ; 

 and therefore it seems probable that he had been divorced 

 from Ameria, who afterwards married, and had sons. By 

 Agnes Sir Adam had a daughter, Johanna, who was his 

 heiress, to whom Agnes in her life-time surrendered part of 

 her jointure : he had also a bastard son. 



Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now called 

 Temple, lying about two miles east of the church, which 

 had been the property of Thomas Makerel. 



In the year 1262 he petitioned the prior of Selborne 

 in his own name, and that of his wife Constantia only, 

 for leave to build him an oratory in his manor-house, 

 " in curia sua." Licenses of this sort were frequently 

 obtained by men of fortune and rank from the bishop 

 of the diocese, the archbishop, and sometimes, as I have 

 seen instances, from the pope ; not only for convenience- 

 sake, and on account of distance, and the badness of 

 the roads, but as a matter of state and distinction. Why 

 the owner should apply to the prior, in preference to the 

 bishop of the diocese, and how the former became com- 

 petent to such a grant, I cannot say ; but that the priors of 

 Selborne did take that privilege is plain, because some 

 years afterward, in 1280, Prior Richard granted to Henry 

 Waterford and his wife Nicholaa a license to build an 

 oratory in their court-house, " curia sua de Waterford," in 

 which they might celebrate divine service, saving the rights 

 of the mother church of Basynges. Yet all the while 

 the prior of Selborne grants with such reserve and caution, 

 as if in doubt of his power, and leaves Gurdon and his 

 lady answerable in future to the bishop, or his ordinary, or 



