446 ANTIQUITIES 



viz. 1307. It lias been observed before that Gurdon had a 

 natural son : this person was called by the name of John 

 Dastard, alias Wastard, but more probably Bastard ; since 

 bastardy in those days was not deemed any disgrace, though 

 dastardy was esteemed the greatest. He was married to 

 Gunnorie Duncun; and had a tenement and some land 

 granted him in Selborne by his sister Johanna. 



LETTER XI. 



HE Knights Templars, 1 who have been men- 

 tioned in a former letter, had considerable 

 property in Selborne ; and also a preceptory 

 at Sudington, now called Southington, a 

 hamlet lying one mile to the east of the vil- 

 Bishop Tanner mentions only two such houses of 



1 The Military Orders of the Religious. 



The Knights Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called 

 Knights of Rhodes, now of Malta, came into England about the year 

 1100, 1 Hen. I. 



The Knights Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen's 

 reign, which commenced 1135. The order was dissolved in 1312, and 

 their estates given by act of Parliament to the Hospitalars in 1323, (all 

 in Edw. II.) though many of their estates were never actually enjoyed 

 by the said Hospitalars. Vid. Tanner, p. xxiv. x. 



The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars, 

 were each subordinate to the principal house of their respective religion 

 in London. Although these are the different denominations, which 

 Tanner at p. xxviii. assigns to the cells of these different orders, yet 

 throughout the work very frequent instances occur of preceptories attri- 

 buted to the Hospitalars ; and if in some passages of Noiitia Monast. 

 commandries are attributed to the Templars, it is only where the place 

 afterwards became the property of the Hospitalars, and so is there 

 indifferently styled preceptory or commandry ; see pp. 243, 263, 276, 

 577, 678. But. to account for the first observed inaccuracy, it is pro- 

 bable the preceptories of the Templars, when given to the Hospitalars, 

 were still vulgarly, however, called by their old 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 



