354 ANTIQUITIES OP SELBORNE. 
any disgrace, though dastardy was esteemed the greatest. He 
was married to Gunnorie Duncun ; 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 ORDEBS OF THB KBLIGIOUS. 
The Knights-Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards callecl Knights of Rhodes, 
now of Malta, came into England about the j'ear 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 were 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 Hospita!ar.s ; and if in 
som passages of Notitia Monast. commandries are attributed to the Templars, it is only where 
the place afterwards became the property of the Hospitalars, 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 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 Ho5.pitalars 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 
Dur ablest antiquaries look upon a preceptorj' and comman«lry as strictly synonymous ; accord- 
ingly we find Camden, in his Britannia, explaining praeceptoria in the text by a commandry in 
the margin, p. .3a6, 510. J. L. 
Commandry, a manor or chief messuage with lands, 8cc. belonging to the priory of St. .lohn of 
Jerusalem ; and he who had the government of such hoilse was called the commander, who could 
not dispose of it but to the use of the priory, only taking thence his own sustenance, acconling to 
his degree, who was usually a bro-ther of the same priory. Cowell. He adds (confounding these 
with preceptories) they are in many places termed Temples, as Temple Bruere in Lincolnshire, 
Sec. Preceptories were 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. 
Piacita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de RofF et sociis suis justic. Itiner. apud Wynton. &c. 
anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo. — " et Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emandasse 
panis, et suis [cerevisiae] in Sodington, et nescint q*. war, et — et magist. Milicie Templi non Ten 
lo distr. Chapter-house, Westminster. 
