254 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



" per manum preceptoris vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore 

 fuerit, ibidem/' may help to explain the difficulty. For if 

 it be allowed here that preceptor and ballivus are syno- 

 nymous words, then the brother who took on him that 

 office resided in the house of the Templars at Sudington, 

 a preceptory ; where he was their preceptor, superintended 

 their affairs, received their money, and, as in the instance 

 there mentioned, paid from their chamber, "camera" as 

 directed ; so that, according to this explanation, a preceptor 

 was no other than a steward, and a preceptorium was his 

 residence. I am well aware that, according to strict Latin, 

 the vel should have been sen or sive, and the order of the 

 words "preceptoris nostri, vel ballivi, qui " et " ibidem " 

 should have been ibi\ ibidem necessarily having reference 

 to two or more persons : but it will hardly be thought fair 

 to apply the niceties of classic rule to the Latinity of the 

 thirteenth century, the writers of which seem to have aimed 

 at nothing farther than to render themselves intelligible. 



There is another remark that we have made, which, I 

 think, corroborates what has been advanced ; and that is, 

 that Richard Carpenter, preceptor of Sudington, at the time of 

 the transactions between the Templars and Selborne Priory, 

 did always sign last as a witness in the three deeds : he 

 calls himself frater, it is true, among many other brothers, 

 but subscribes with a kind of deference, as if, for the time 

 being, his office rendered him an inferior in the community. 1 



1 In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald's Hospital in the city 

 of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, pp. 227, 228, of his collections for the history 

 of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and preceptoria signify the mastership 

 of the said hospital : " ad preceptorium sive magisterium presentavit preceptorii 

 sive magistcrii patronas. Vacavit dicta preceptoria seu magisterium ad precep- 

 toriam et regimen dicti hospitalis Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus." 



Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably mean 

 the master's lodgings, or at least the preceptor's apartment, whatsoever may have 

 been the office or employment of the said preceptor. 



A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby*s Ducatus Leodiensis, or History of Leeds, 

 p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and chaplain before dates were 

 inserted. DuFresne's Supplement : " Prcceptoria, praedia/rar^tor^wjassignata." 

 Cowel, in his Law Dictionary, enumerates sixteen preceptoria, or preceptories, in 

 England', but Sudington is not among them. It is remarkable that Gurtlerus, 

 in his Historia Templariorum, Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the words 

 preceptor or preceptorium. [G. W.] 



