ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 345 



This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger, and 

 lived probably at the spot now called Chapel-farm. The grant 

 bears date the 17th year of the reign of Henry III. [viz. 1233.] 



It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for lands 

 or tenements that might be produced from my vouchers. I 

 shall therefore pass over all such for the present, and conclude 

 this letter with a remark that must strike every thinking person 

 with some degree of wonder. No sooner had a monastic insti- 

 tution got a footing, but the neighbourhood began to be touched 

 with a secret and religious awe. Every person round was de- 

 sirous to promote so good a work ; and either by sale, by grant, 

 or by gift in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a benefactor. 

 They who had not lands to spare gave roads to accommodate the 

 infant foundation. The religious were not backward in keeping 

 up this pious propensity, which they observed so readily influ- 

 enced the breasts of men. Thus did the more opulent monas- 

 teries add house to house, and field to field ; and by degrees 

 manor to manor : till at last " there was no place left ;" but 

 every district around became appropriated to the purposes of 

 their founders, and every precinct was drawn into the vortex. 



LETTER VIII. 



OUR forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy and bust- 

 ling, and as important, as ourselves : yet have their names and 

 transactions been forgotten from century to century, and have 

 sunk into oblivion ; nor has this happened only to the vulgar, 

 but even to men remarkable and famous in their generation. I 

 was led into this train of thinking by finding in my vouchers 

 that Sir Adam Gurdon was an inhabitant of Selborne, and a man 

 of the first rank and property in the parish. By Sir Adam Gur- 

 don I would be und-srstood to mean that leading and accom- 

 plished malecontent in the Mountfort faction, who distinguished 

 himself by his daring conduct in the reign of Henry III. The 

 first that we hear of this person in my papers is, that with two 

 others he was bailiff of Alton before the sixteenth of Henry III. 

 viz. about 1231, and then not knighted. Who Gurdon was, and 

 whence he came, does not appear : yet there is reason to suspect 

 that he was originally a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised 

 himself by marrying women of property. The name of Gurdon 



