OF SEL BORNE. 447 



the Templars in all the county of Southampton, viz. Godes- 

 field, founded by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winches- 

 ter, and South Badeisley, a preceptory of the Knights Tem- 

 plars, and afterwards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued at 

 118 16s. Id. 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 neighbours. 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 



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. 1. 720, note e. 



It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hos- 

 pitalars holds the same language ; for there, in the enumeration of 

 particulars, occur " commandries, 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 peceptory and commandry 

 as strictly synonymous ; accordingly we find Camden, in his Britannia, 

 explaining prceceptoria in the text by a commandry in the margin, 

 pp. 356, 510. 



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, accord- 

 ing to his degree, who was usually a brother of the same priory. Cowell. 

 He adds (confounding these with preceptories) they are in many places 

 termed Temples, as Temple Bruere in Lincolnshire, &c. Preceptories 

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

 master created and called Pr&ccptores 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 

 [cerevisise] in Sodington, & nescint q. war. et et magist. Milicie 

 Templi non ven i5 distr. Chapter House, Westminster. G. W. 



