320 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE, 



LETTER XL 



THE Knights Templars,* who have been mentioned in a former 

 letter, had considerable property in Selborne ; and also a preceptory 

 at Sudington, now called Southington, a hamlet lying one mile to 

 the east of the village. Bishop Tanner mentions only two such 

 houses of the Templars in all the county of Southampton, viz., 

 Godesfield, founded by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, and 

 South Badeisley, a preceptory of the Knights Templars, and after- 

 wards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued at one hundred and 

 eighteen pounds sixteen shillings and sevenpence per annum. 



* THE MILITARY ORDERS OF THE RELIGIOUS. 



The Knights Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called Knights of Rhodes, 

 now of Malta, came into England about the year noo. i Hen. i. 



The Knights Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen's reign, which 

 commenced 1135. The order was dissolved in 1312, and their estates given by Act of 

 Parliament to the Hospitalars in 1323 (all in Edw. II.) though many of their estates were 

 never actually enjoyed by the said Hospitalars. Vid. TANNER, p. 24, 10. 



The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars, were each sub- 

 ordinate to the principal house of their respective religion in London. Although these 

 are the different denominations, which " Tanner "at p. 37 assigns to the cells of these 

 different orders, yet throughout the work very frequent instances occur of preceptories 

 attributed to the Hospitalars; and if in some passages of " Notitia Monast." com- 

 mandries are attributed to the Templars, it is rnly where the place afterwards became the 

 property of the Hospitalars, and so is there indifferently styled preceptory or commandry ; 

 see p. 243, 263, 276, 577, 678. But, to account for the first observed in accuracy, it is 

 probable the preceptories of the Templars, when given to the Hospitalars, were still 

 vulgarly, however, called by their old name of preceptories ; whereas in propriety 

 societies of the Hospitalars were indeed (as has been said) commandries. And such 

 deviation from the strictness of expression in this case might occasion those societies of 

 Hospitalars also to be indifferently called preceptories, which had originally been vested 

 in them, having never belonged to the Templars at all. See in ARCHER, p. 609 ; TANNER, 

 p. 300, col. i, 720, n. e. 



It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hospitalars holds the same 

 language ; for there, in the enumeration of particulars occur " commandries, preceptories." 

 CODEX, p. 1190. Now this intercommunity of names, and that in an Act of Parliament 

 too, made some of our ablest antiquaries look upon a preceptory and c< mmandry as 

 strictly synonymous; accordingly we find Camden, in his "Britannia," explaining 

 praeceptoria in the text by a commandry in the margin, p. 356. 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 com- 

 mander, who cquld not dispose of it but to the use of the priory, only taking thence his 

 own sustenance, according 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 sort of Templars, whom the chief master created and called Prseceptores Templi. 

 COWELL, who refers to STEPHENS De Jurisd. lib. iv. c. 10, no. 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 

 emendasse panis. et suis [cerevisiae] in Sodington, et nescint q. war. et et magist. Milicie 

 Templi n<5n ven i5 distr." Chapter House, Westminster. 



