530 ANTIQUITIES 



Bishop Tanner mentions only two such houses of the 

 Templars in all the county of Southampton, viz. Godes- 

 field, founded by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, 

 and South Badeisley, a preceptory of the Knights Tem- 

 plars, and afterwards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued 

 at one hundred and eighteen pounds sixteen shillings 

 and seven pence per annum. Here then was a precep- 

 tory unnoticed by antiquaries, between the village and 

 Temple. Whatever the edifice of the preceptory might 

 have been, it has long since been dilapidated ; and tin- 

 whole hamlet contains now only one mean farm-house, 

 though there were two in the memory of man. 



It has been usual for the religious of different orders 

 to fall into great dissensions, and especially when they 

 were near neighbours. Instances of this sort we have 

 heard of between the monks of Canterbury; and again 

 between the old abbey of St. Swythun, and the compa- 

 ratively new minster of Hyde in the city of Winchester 2 . 



some of our ablest antiquaries look upon a preceptory and command ry 

 as strictly synonymous; accordingly we find Camden, in his Britannia, 

 explaining prteceptoria in the text by a commandry in the margin, p. 350, 

 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 of the priory, only taking thence his own sustenance, accord- 

 ing 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, &c. Preceptories 

 were possessed by the more eminent ort of Templars, whom the chief 

 master created and called Prteceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to 

 Stephens de Jurisd. lib. 4. c. 10. num. 27. 



Placita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de Roff et sociis suis justic. 

 Itiner. apud Wynton, &c. anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo. 

 " et Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emendasst* panis, & suis [cerevisia-] 

 in Sodington, & nescint q. war. et et magist. Milicie Templi non ven iu 

 distr. Chapter House, Westminster. 



2 Notitia Monastica, p. 155. 



" Winchester, Newminster. King Alfred founded here first only a 

 house and chapel for the learned monk Grimbald, whom he had brought 

 out of Flanders: but afterwards projected, and by his will ordered, a 

 noble church or religious house to be built in the cemetery on the north 



