354 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



any disgrace, though dastardy was esteemed the greatest. He 

 was married to Gunnorie Duncun ; and had a tenement and some 

 land granted him in Selborne by his sister Johanna. 



LETTER XL 



THE Knights-Templars,* who have been mentioned in a former 

 letter, had considerable property in Selborne ; and also a precep- 

 tory at Sudington, now called Southington, 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 Southamp- 

 ton, viz. Godesfield, founded by Henry de Blois, bishop of Win- 

 chester, and South Badeisley, a preceptory of the Knights- 

 Templars, and afterwards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued at one 



The Knights-Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called Knights of Rhodes, 

 now of Malta, came into England about the year 1100, 1 Hen. I. 



The Knights-Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen's reign, which commenced 

 in 1135. The order was dissolved in 1312, and their estates given by act of parliament to the Hos- 

 pitalars in 1323, (all in Edw. II.) though many of their estates were never actually enjoyed by 

 the said Hospitalars. Vid. Tanner, p. xxiv. x. 



The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars, were each subordinate to 

 the principal house of their respective religion in London. Although these are the different deno- 

 minations which Tanner at p. xxviii. assigns to the cells of these different orders, yet throughout 

 the work very frequent instances occur of preceptories attributed to the Hospitalars ; and if in 

 some passages of Notitia Monast. command-Ties are attributed to the Templars, it is only where 

 the place afterwards became the property of the Hospitalars, and so is there indifferently styled 

 preceptory or commandry; see p. 243, 263, 2/6, 577, 673. But, to account for the first observed 

 Hiaccuraey, it is probable the preceptories of the Templars, when given to the Hospitalars, were 

 still vulgarly, however, called by their old name of preceptories ; whereas in propriety the socie- 

 ties of the Hospitalars were indeed (as has been said) commandries. . And such deviation from 

 the strictness of expression in this case might 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 e- 



It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hospitalars holds the same lan- 

 guage ; for there, in the enumeration of particulars, 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 aiid commandry as strictly synonymous ; accord- 

 ingly we find Camden, in his Britannia, explaining praeceptoria 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 f 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 Bruere in Lincolnshire, 

 See. Preceptories were" possessed by the more eminent sort of Templars, whom the chief master 

 Created and called Praeceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to Stephens de Jurisd. lib. 4, c. 10, 

 mini. 2/. 



Placita de juratis et a=sis coram Salom. de Roff et sociis suis justic. Itiner. apud Wynton. &c. 

 auno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo. " et Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emandaste 

 panis, et suis [cerevisiae] in Sodington, et nescint q. war, et etmagist. Milicie Templi non ven 

 10 Aistr. Chapter-house, Westminster. 



