OF SELBORNE. 549 



LETTER IX. 



IT has been hinted in a former letter that Sir Adam 

 Gurdon had availed himself by marrying "women of 

 property. By my evidences it appears that he had 

 three wives, and probably in the following order : Con- 

 stantia, 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 Sel- 

 borne, who was either her father or uncle. The second, 

 Ameria, calls herself the quondam wife of Sir Adam, 

 " qua? fui uxor," &c. 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 Gur- 

 don 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 lifetime 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 Sel borne 

 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 conveni- 

 ence 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 



