356 ANTIQUITIES OP SELBORNE. 



equivalent in lands or rents within four or five miles of the said 

 convent. It is also further agreed that, if the templars shall be 

 in arrears for one year, that then the prior shall be empowered 

 to distrain upon their live stock in Bradeseth. The next matter 

 was a grant from Robert de Saunford to the priory for ever, of a 

 good and sufficient road, " cheminum," capable of admitting car- 

 riages, and proper for the drift of their larger cattle, from the 

 way which extends from Sudington towards Blakemere, on to the 

 lands which the convent possesses in Bradeseth. 



The third transaction (though for want of dates we cannot say 

 which happened first and which last) was a grant from Robert 

 Samford to the priory of a tenement and its appurtenances in the 

 village of Selborne, given to the Templars by Americus de Vasci.* 

 This property, by the manner of describing it, " totum tene- 

 mentum cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, et 

 hominibus, in pratis et pascuis, et nemoribus," &c. seems to have 

 been no inconsiderable purchase, and was sold for two hundred 

 marks sterling, to be applied for the buying of more land for the 

 support of the holy war. 



Prior John is mentioned as the person to whom Vasci's land 

 is conveyed. But in Willis's list there is no prior John till 1339, 

 several years after the dissolution of the order of the Templars 

 in 1312 ; so that unless Willis is wrong, and has omitted a prior 

 John since 1262, (that being the date of his first prior) these 

 transactions must have fallen out before that date. 



I find not the least traces of any concerns between Gurdon and 

 the Knights-Templars ; but probably after his death his daughter 

 Johanna might have, and might bestow, Temple on that order in 

 support of the holy land : and, moreover, she seems to have been 

 moving from Selborne when she sold her goods and chattels to 

 the priory, as mentioned above. 



Temple no doubt did belong to the knights, as may be as- 

 serted, not only from its name, but also from another corrobo- 

 rating circumstance of its being still a manor tithe-free ; " for, 

 by virtue of their order," says Dr. Blackstone, " the lands of the 

 Knights-Templars were privileged by the pope with a discharge 

 from tithes." 



Antiquaries have been much puzzled about the terms precep- 

 tores and preceptorium, not being able to determine what officer 



* Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had been probably a soldier of 

 fortune, and one of (iurdon's captains. Americus Vespucio, the person who gave name to the 

 iittvr world, was a Fl orentinc. 



