564 ANTIQUITIES 



true, among many other brothers, but subscribes with 

 a kind of deference, as if, for the time being, his office 

 rendered him an inferior in the community 5 . 



LETTER XII. 



THE ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon were 

 not the only benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne ; 

 for, in the year 1281, Ela Longspee obtained masses 

 to be performed for her soul's health; and the prior 

 entered into an engagement that one of the convent 

 should every day say a special mass for ever for the 

 said benefactress, whether living or dead. She also 

 engaged within five years to pay to the said convent 

 one hundred marks of silver for the support of a 

 chantry and chantry-chaplain, who should perform his 

 masses daily in the parish church of Selborne 1 . In 

 the east end of the south aisle there are two sharp- 

 pointed Gothic niches ; one of these probably was the 

 place under which these masses were performed ; and 



* In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald's hospital in 

 the city of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, p. 227 and 228, of his Collec- 

 tions for the History of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and prc- 

 ceptoria signify the mastership of the said hospital : " ad preceptorium sive 

 magisterium presentavit preceptorii sive magistcrii patronus. Vacavit 

 dicta preceptoria seu magisterium ad preceptoriam et regimen dicti hospi- 

 talis Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus." 



Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably 

 mean the master's lodgings, or at least the preceptor's apartment, what- 

 soever may have been the office or employment of the said preceptor. 



A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, or His- 

 tory of Leeds, p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and chaplain 

 before dates were inserted. Du Fresne's Supplement: " Preceptoria, 

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

 rates sixteen preceptorice, or preceptories, in England ; but Sudington is not 

 among them. It is remarkable that Gurtlerus, in his Historia Templario- 

 rum, Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the words preceptor or preceptorium. 



1 A chantry was a chapel joined to some cathedral or parish church, 

 and endowed with annual revenues for the maintenance of one or more 

 priests to sing mass daily for the soul of the founder, and others. 



