3 12 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



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 : Constantia, 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 Selborne, who was either her father or 

 uncle. The second, Ameria, calls herself the quondam wife of Sir 

 Adam, " quae 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 Adcs Gurdon in pura et 

 ligea viduitate mea : " but Gurdon 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 life-time 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 Selborne 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 convenience-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 competent to such a grant, I cannot say ; but that 

 the priors of Selborne did take that privilege is plain, because some 

 years afterward, in 1280, Prior Richard granted to Henry Waterford 

 and his wife Nicholaa, a license to build an oratory in their court- 

 house, " curia sua de Waterford," in which they might celebrate 



