322 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



It is also further agreed that, if the Templars shall be in arrears 

 for one year, that then the prior shall be empowered to distrain upon 

 their live stock in Bradeseth. The next matter was a grant from 

 Robert de Sunford to the priory for ever, of u 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 we cannot say 

 which happened first and which last) was a grant from Robert 

 Samford to the priory of a tenement and its appurtenances in the 

 village of Selborne, given to the Templars by Americus de Vasci.* 

 This property, by the manner of describing it, "totum tenementum 

 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 dissolution 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 transactions 

 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 

 removing from Selborne, when she sold her goods and chattels to 

 the priory, as mentioned above. 



Temple, no doubt, did belong to the knights, as may be asserted, 

 not only from its name, but also from another corroborating circum- 

 stance of its being still a manor, tithe-free ; " for, by virtue of their 

 order," says Blackstone, "the lands of the Knights Templars were 

 privileged by the pope with a discharge from tithes." 



Antiquaries have been much puzzled about the terms preceptores 

 x.n.&preceptorium, not being able to determine what officer or edifice 

 was meant. But perhaps all the while the passage quoted above 



* Americus Va^ci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had been probably a 

 soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon's captains. Americus Vespucio, the person who 

 gave name to the new world, was a Florentine. 



