ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 357 



or edifice was meant. But perhaps all the while the passage 

 quoted above from one of my papers " per manum preceptoris 

 vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore fuerit ibidem," may help to 

 explain the difficulty. For if it be allowed here that preceptor 

 and ballivus are synonymous words, then the brother who took 

 on him that office resided in the house of the Templars at Sud- 

 ington, a preceptory; where he was their preceptor, superintended 

 their affairs, received their money ; and, as in the instance there 

 mentioned, paid from their chamber, " camera/' as directed : so 

 that, according to this explanation, a preceptor was no other than 

 a steward, and a preceptorium was his residence. I am well 

 aware that, according to strict Latin, the vel should have been 

 seu or sive, and the order of the words " preceptoris nostri, vel 

 ballivi, qui" et "ibidem" should have been ibi; ibidem neces- 

 sarily having reference to two or more persons : but it will hardly 

 be thought fair to apply the niceties of classic rules to the 

 Latinity of the thirteenth century, the writers of which seem to 

 have aimed at nothing further than to render themselves in- 

 telligible. 



There is another remark that we have made, which, I think, 

 corroborates what has been advanced ; and that is, that Richard 

 Carpenter, preceptor of Sudington, at the time of the transactions 

 between the Templars and Selborne Priory, did always sign last 

 as a witness in the three deeds : he calls himself frater, it is true, 

 among many other brothers, but subscribes with a kind of de- 

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

 inferior in the community.* 



* In two or three jancient 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 

 magisterium preseiitavit preceptorii sive magisterii patronus. Vacavit dicta preceptoria seu 

 magisterinm ad preceptoriam et regimen dicti hospitalis Te preceptorem sive magistrum pre- 

 fecimus." 



Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably mean the master's lodg- 

 ings, 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. Du Fresne's Supple- 

 ment : " Preceptoriae, praedia preceptoribus assignata." Cowell, in his Law Dictionary, enume- 

 rates sixteen preceptorine, or preceptories, in England , but Sudington is not among them. It is 

 remarkable that Gurtlerus, in his Historia Templariorum Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the 

 word preceptor or preceptorium. 



