270 THE ANTIQUITIES 



lory 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 

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

 eighteen pounds sixteen shillings and seven pence per annum. 

 Here then was a preceptory unnoticed by antiquaries, between the 

 village and Temple. Whatever the edifice of the preceptory might 

 have been,, it has long since been dilapidated ; and the whole 

 hamlet contains now only one mean farm-house, though there 

 were two in the memory of man. 



It has been usual for the religious of different orders to fall 

 into great dissensions, and especially when they were near neigh- 

 bours. Instances of this sort we have heard of between the 

 monks of Canterbury ; and again between the old abbey of St. 

 Swythun, and the comparatively new minister of Hyde in the city 

 of Winchester. 1 These feuds arose probably from different orders 



name of preceptories ; whereas in propriety the 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. note 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 ' ' cotn- 

 mandries, 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 commandry as strictly synonymous ; accordingly we find Camden, 

 in his Britannia, explaining prceceptoria 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 commander, who could 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. Co-well. He adds (confounding these with preceptories] they are 

 in many places termed Temples, as Temple Bruere in Lincolnshire, &c. Pre- 

 ceptories were possessed by the more eminent sort of Templars, whom the chief 

 master created and called Prceceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to Stephens de 

 Jurisd. lib. 4. c. 10. num. 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, & suis [cerevisias] in Sodington, & 

 "nescint q. war. et et magist. Milicie Templi non ven io distr." 



Chapter-house Westminster. 



1 Notitia Monastica, p. 155. 



" Winchester, Newminster. King Alfred founded here first only a house and 

 "chapel for the learned monk Grimbald, whom he had brought out of Flanders : 



