OF SELBOENE. 
437 
of considerable fortune, which she inherited from Thomas 
Makerel, a gentleman of Selborne, who was either her 
father or uncle. The second, Ameria, calls herself the 
quondam wife of Sir Adam, ^' quae fui uxor/^ &c., and talks 
of her sons under age. I^ow Gurdon had no son : and 
beside Agnes in another document says, Ego Agnes 
quondam uxor Domini Adas Gurdon in pura et ligea vi- 
duitate mea : but Gurdon could not leave two widows ; 
and therefore it seems probable that he had been divorced 
from Ameria, who afterwards married and had sons. By 
Agnes Sir Adam had a daughter Johanna, who was his 
heiress^ to whom Agnes in her lifetime surrendered part 
of her jointure : — he had also a bastard son. 
Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now called 
Temple, lying about two miles east of the church, which 
had been the property of Thomas Makerel. 
In the year 1262 he petitioned the prior of Selborne in 
his own name, and that of his wife Constantia only, for 
leave to build him an oratory in his manor house, in curia 
sua." Licenses of this sort were frequently obtained by 
men of fortune and rank from the bishop of the diocese, 
the archbishop, and sometimes, as I have seen instances, 
from the pope ; not only for convenience sake, and on 
account of distance, and the badness of the roads, but as a 
matter of state and distinction. Why the owner should 
apply to the prior, in preference to the bishop of the dio- 
cese, and how the former became competent to such a 
grant, I cannot say; but that the priors of Selborne did 
take that privilege is plain, because some years afterward, 
in 1280, Prior Richard granted to Henry Waterford and 
his wife Nichola a license to build an oratory in their court 
house, curia sua de Waterford,'^ in which they might 
celebrate divine service, saving the rights of the mother 
church of Basynges. Yet all the while the prior of Sel- 
borne grants with such reserve and caution, as if in doubt 
of his power^ and leaves Gurdon and his lady answerable in 
future to the bishop, or his ordinary, or to the vicar for the 
time being, in case they should infringe the rights of the 
mother church of Selborne. 
