OF SELBOBNE. 
417 
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 preceptory 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 PrcBceptores 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 justlc. 
Itiner. apud Wynton, &c. anno regni E,. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. 
octavo. — " et Magr. MUicie Templi in Angl. ht emendasse panis, & suis 
[cerevisiaB] in Sodington, & nescint q**. war. et — et magist. Milicie 
Templi non ven io distr.— Chapter House, Westminster. — G. W. 
