562 ANTIQUITIES 



arrears for one year, that then the prior shall be em- 

 powered 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 carriages, 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 \\r 

 cannot say which happened first and which last) was a 

 grant from Robert Saunford to the priory of a tenement 

 and its appurtenances in the village of Selborne, given 

 to the Templars by Americus de Vasci 4 . This pro- 

 perty, by the manner of describing it," totum tene- 

 mentum cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, 

 & hominibus, in pratis & pascuis, & 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 dissolu- 

 tion 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 trans- 

 actions 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. 



4 Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had 

 been probably a soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon's captains. Ame- 

 ricus Vespucio, the person who gave name to the new world, was a 

 Florentine. 



