OF SELBORNE. 437 



of considerable fortune, which she inherited from Thomas 

 Makerel, a gentleman of Selborne, who was either her 

 father or uncle. The second, Ameria, calls herself the 

 quondam wife of Sir Adam, " quas fui uxor," &c., and talks 

 of her sons under age. Now Gurdon had no son : and 

 beside Agnes in another document says, " Ego Agnes 

 quondam uxor Domini Adas Gurdon in pura et ligea vi- 

 duitate mea : " but Gurdon could not leave two widows ; 

 and therefore it seems probable that he had been divorced 

 from Ameria, who afterwards married and had sons. By 

 Agnes Sir Adam had i daughter Johanna, who was his 

 heiress, to whom Agnes in her lifetime surrendered part 

 of her jointure: he had also a bastard son. 



Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now called 

 Temple, lying about two miles east of the church, which 

 had been the property of Thomas Makerel. 



In the year 1262 he petitioned the prior of Selborne in 

 his own name, and that of his wife Constantia only, for 

 leave to build him an oratory in his manor house, " in curia 

 sua." Licenses of this sort were frequently obtained by 

 men of fortune and rank from the bishop of the diocese, 

 the archbishop, and sometimes, as I have seen instances, 

 from the pope ; not only for convenience sake, and on 

 account of distance, and the badness of the roads, but as a 

 matter of state and distinction. Why the owner should 

 apply to the prior, in preference to the bishop of the dio- 

 cese, and how the former became competent to such a 

 grant, I cannot say ; but that the priors of Selborne did 

 take that privilege is plain, because some years afterward, 

 in 1280, Prior Richard granted to Henry Waterford and 

 his wife Nichola a license to build an oratory in their court 

 house, " curia sua de Waterford," in which they might 

 celebrate divine service, saving the rights of the mother 

 church of Basynges. Yet all the while the prior of Sel- 

 borne grants with such reserve and caution, as if in doubt 

 of his power, and leaves Gurdon and his lady answerable in 

 future to the bishop, or his ordinary, or to the vicar for the 

 time being, in case they should infringe the rights of the 

 mother church of Selborne. 



