356 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
equivalent in lands or rents within four or five miles of the said 
convent. It is also further agreed that, if the templars shall be 
in arrears for one year, that then the prior shall be empowered 
to distrain upon their live stock in Bradeseth. The next matter 
was a grant from Robert de Saunford to the priory for ever, of a 
good and sufficient road, " cheminum,'' capable of admitting car- 
riages, and proper for the drift of their larger cattle, from the 
way which extends from Sudington towards Blakemere, on to the 
lands which the convent possesses in Bradeseth. 
The third transaction (though for want of dates we cannot say 
which happened first and which last) was a grant from Robert 
Samford to the priory of a tenement and its appurtenances in the 
village of Selborne, given to the Templars by Americus de Vasci.* 
This property, by the manner of describing it, — " totum tene- 
mentum cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, et 
hominibus, in pratis et pascuis, et nemoribus,^^ Szc. seems to have 
been no inconsiderable purchase, and was sold for two hundred 
marks sterling, to be applied for the buying of more land for the 
support of the holy war. 
Prior John is mentioned as the person to whom Vasci's land 
is conveyed. But in Willis's list there is no prior John till 1339, 
several years after the dissolution of the order of the Templars 
in 1312 ; so that unless Willis is wrong, and has omitted a prior 
John since 1262, (that being the date of his first prior) these 
transactions must have fallen out before that date. 
I find not the least traces of any concerns between Gurdon and 
the Knights -Templars ; but probably after his death his daughter 
Johanna might have, and might bestow. Temple on that order in 
support of the holy land : and, moreover, she seems to have been 
moving from Selborne when she sold her goods and chattels to 
the priory, as mentioned above. 
Temple no doubt did belong to the knights, as may be as- 
serted, not only from its name, but also from another corrobo- 
rating circumstance of its being still a manor tithe-free ; " for, 
by virtue of their order,'' says Dr. Blackstone, " the lands of the 
Knights-Templars were privileged by the pope with a discharge 
from tithes." 
Antiquaries have been much puzzled about the terms precep- 
tores and preceptorium, not being able to determine what officer 
* Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had been probably a soldier of 
fortune, and one of Gurdon's captains. Americus Vespucio, the person who gave name to th« 
new world, was a Florentine. 
