XII.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
505 
among many other brothers, but subscribes with a kind of 
difference, as if, for the time being, l]is office rendered him an 
inferior in the community.^ 
LETTER XII. 
The ladies and daughters of Sir Adam Gurdon were not the 
only benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne ; for, in the year 
1281, Ela Longspee obtained masses to be performed for her 
soul's health ; and the prior entered into an engagement that 
one of the convent should every day say a special mass for ever 
for the said benefactress, wliether living or dead. She a.lso 
engaged within five years to pay to the said convent one hundred 
marks of silver for the support of a chantry and chantry- 
chaplain, who should perform his masses daily in the parish 
church of Selborne.^ In the east end of the south aisle there 
there are two sharp-pointed Gothic niches ; one of these pro- 
bably was the place under which these masses were performed ; 
and there is the more reason to suppose as much, because till 
^ In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald's Hospital in the 
city of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, p. 227 and 228, of liis Collections 
for the History of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and preceptoria 
signify the mastership of the said hospital : " ad preceptorium sive magis- 
terium presentavit — precepturii sive magisterii patronus. Vacavit dicta pre- 
ceptoria sen magisterium~Sid preceptoriam et regimen dicti hospitalis — Te 
preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus." 
Where preceptorium denotes a building or apart Qient it may probably mean 
the master's lodgings, or at least the preceptor's apartment, whatsoever may 
have been the office or employment of the said preceptor. 
A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby's " Ducatus Leodinensis," or History 
of Leeds, p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and chaplain before 
dates were inserted. — Du Fresno's Supplement : " FreceptoricB, prsedia pre- 
ceptorihus assignata." — Co well, in his Law Dictionary, enumerates sixteen 
preceptorim, ot preceptor ies, in England ; but Sudington is not among them. — 
It is remarkable that Gurtelerus, in his " Historia Templariorum Amstel." 
1691, never once mentions the words preceptor or preceptorium. 
^ A chantry was a chapel joined to some cathedral or parish church, and 
endowed with annual revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests to 
sing mass daily for the soul of the founder, and others. 
