354 
ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
any disgrace, though dastardy was esteemed the greatest. He 
was married to Gunnorie Dimcun ; and had a tenement and some 
land granted him in Selborne by his sister Johanna. 
LETTER XL 
The Knights-Templars,* who have been mentioned in a former 
letter, had considerable property in Selborne ; and also a precep- 
tory at Sudington, now called Southington, a hamlet lying one 
mile to the east of the village. Bishop Tanner mentions only 
two such houses of the Templars in all the county of Southamp- 
ton, viz. Godesfield, founded by Henry de Blois, bishop of Win- 
chester, and South Badeisley, a prcceptory of the Knights- 
Templars, and afterwards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued at one 
* THE MILITARY ORDERS OF THB RBLIGIOUS. 
The Knights-Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called Knights of Rhodes, 
noMT of Malta, came into England about the year 1100, 1 Hen. I. 
The Knights-Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen's reign, which commenced 
in 1135. The order was dissolved in 1312, and their estates given by act of parliament to the Hos- 
pitalars in 1323, (all in Edw. II.) though many of their estates wefre never actually enjoyed by 
the said Hospiialars. Vid. Tanner, p. xxiv. x. 
The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars, were each subordinate to 
the principal house of their respective religion in London. Although these are the different deno- 
minations which Tanner at p. xxviii. assigns to the cells of these different orders, yet throughout 
the work very frequent instances occur of preceptories attributed to the Hospitalars ; and if in 
some passages of Notitia Monast. commandries are attributed to the Templars, it is only where 
the place afterwards became the property of the Flospitalars, and so is there indifferently styled 
preceptory or commandry; see p. 243, 263, 276, 577> 678. But, to account for the first observed 
inaccuracy, it is probable the preceptories of the Templars, when given to the Hospitalars, were 
still vulgarly, however, called by their old name of preceptories ; whereas in propriety the socie- 
ties of the Hospitalars were indeed (as has been said) commandries. And such deviation from 
the strictness of 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 belouged 
to the Templars at all. — S ee in Archer, p. 609. 1 anner, p. 300, col. 1. 720, note e. 
It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hospitalars holds the same lan- 
guage ; 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 ; accord- 
ingly we find Camden, in his Britannia, explaining praeceptoria in the text by a commandry in 
the margin, p. 356, 510. J. L. 
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, according 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, 
See. Preceptories wore possessed by the more eminent sort of Templars, whom the chief master 
created and called Prseceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to Stephens de Jurisd. lib. 4, c. 10, 
num. 27. 
Placita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de Roffet sociis suis justic, Itiner. apud Wynton. &c. 
anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Heg. Hen. octavo. — " et Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl, ht emandasse 
panis, et suis [cerevisiae] in Sf>dington, et nescint q'^. war, et — et magist. Milicie Templi non ven 
10 distr. Chapter-house, Westminster. 
