OF SELBOBNE. 
451 
but subscribes with a kind of deference, as if, for the time 
being, his office rendered him an inferior in the commu- 
nity.^ 
LETTER XIL 
HE ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon 
were not the only benefactresses to the Priory 
of Selborne ; for, in the year 1281, Ela Long- 
spee obtained masses to be performed for her 
souFs 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, whether living 
or dead. She also 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 are two sharp-pointed 
Gothic niches ; one of these probably was the place under 
1 In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald's hospital in 
the city of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, pp. 227 and 228 of his "Col- 
lections for the History of Worcestershu'e," the words preceptorium and 
preceptoria signify the mastership of the said hospital : " ad preceptorium 
sive magisterium presentavit — preceptorii sive magisterii patronus. Va- 
cavit dicta preceptoria sen magisterium — ad preceptoriam et regimen 
dicti hospitalis — Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus." 
Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably 
mean the master's lodgings, or at least the preceptor's apartment, what- 
soever may have been the office or employment of the said preceptor. 
A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby's " Ducatus Leodiensis, or 
History of Leeds," p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and 
chaplain before dates were inserted. — Du Fresne's " Supplement :" "Pre- 
ceptorice, prasdia preceptoribus assignata." — Cowell, in his " Law Dic- 
tionary," enumerates sixteen preceptorice, or preceptories, in England; 
but Sudington is not among them. — It is remarkable that Gurtlerus, in 
his " Ilistoria Templariorum," Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the 
words preceptor or preceptorium. — G. W. 
2 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. — G. W. 
