OF SELBORNE. 449 



vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore fuerit ibidem/' till they 

 can provide the prior and canons with an equivalent in 

 lands or rents within four or five miles of the said convent. 

 It is also further agreed, if the Templars shall be in arrears 

 for one year, that then the prior shall be empowered to 

 distrain upon their live stock in Bradeseth. The next 

 matter was a grant from Robert de Saunford to the priory 

 for ever, of a good and sufficient road, " cheminum," capable 

 of admitting carriages, and proper for the drift of their 

 larger cattle, from, the way which extends from Sudington 

 towards Blakemere, on to the lands which the convent pos- 

 sesses in Bradeseth. 



The third transaction (though for want of dates we can- 

 not say which happened first and which last) was a grant 

 from Robert Saunford to the priory of a tenement and 

 its appurtenances in the village of Selborne, given to the 

 Templars by Americus de Vasci. 1 This property, by the 

 manner of describing it, ' ' totum tenementum cum omnibus 

 pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, & kominibw, in pratis & 

 pascuis, & nemoribus," &c., seems to have been no incon- 

 siderable 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 Vasci's 

 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 Gur- 

 don and the Knights Templars; but probably after his 

 death his daughter Johanna might have, and might bestow, 



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

 been probably a soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon's captains. 

 Americus Vespucio, the person who gave name to the new world, was 

 a Florentine. G. W. 



G G 



