THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 253 



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 Vascil- 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 Vascfs 

 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 it's name, but also from another 

 corroborating circumstance of it's being still a manor, 

 tithe-free ; " for, by virtue of their order," says Dr. Black- 

 stone, "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 and preceptorium, not being able to determine 

 what officer or edifice was meant. But perhaps all the 

 while the passage quoted above from one of my papers, 



1 Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had been 

 probably a soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon's captains. Americus Vcspucio^ 

 the person who gave name to the new world, was a Florentine. [G. W.] 



