ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 347 
availed himself by marrying women of property. By my evidences 
it appears that he had three wives, and probably in the follow- 
mg order : Constantia, Ameria, and Agnes. The first of these 
ladies, who was the companion of his middle life, seems to have 
been a person 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. Now Gurdon had no son: and beside Agnes in 
another document says, " Ego Agnes quondam uxor Domini Adse 
Gurdon in pura et ligea viduitate 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 life-time 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 conveni- 
ence-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 
diocese, and how the former became competent to such a grant, 
I cannot say ; but that the priors of Selborne did take that pri- 
vilege is plain, because some years afterward, in 1280, Prior 
Richard granted to Henry Waterford and his wife Nicholaa 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 Selborne grants with such reserve and caution, as if 
in doubt of his power, and leaves Gurdon and his lady answer- 
able 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 at Selborne. 
The manor-house called Temple is at present a single building. 
