OF SELBORNE 297 



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 car- 

 riages, 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 possesses in 

 Bradeseth. 



The third transaction (though for want of dates we 

 cannot say which happened first and which last) was a 

 grant from Robert Samford to the priory of a tenement 

 and its appurtenances in the village of Selborne, given to 

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

 the manner of describing it, — " totum tenementum cum 

 omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, & hominibus, in 

 pratis & pascuis, & nemoribus," etc. seems to have been 

 no inconsiderable 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 1 3 1 2 ; 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 

 Gurdon and the Knights Templars ; but probably after his 

 death his daughter Johanna might have, and might bestow, 

 Temple on that order in support of the holy land : and, 

 moreover, she seems to have been moving from Selborne 

 when she sold her goods and chattels to the priory, as 

 mentioned above. 



Temple no doubt did belong to the knights, as may be 

 asserted, not only from its name, but also from another 



'Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had 

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

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

 Florentine. 



