asserted, not only from its name, but also from another corroborating circumstance of its being still a manor, tithe-free; “for, by virtue of their order,” says 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 preceptores and preceptorium, not being able to determine what officer or edifice was meant. But perhaps all the while the passage quoted above from one of my papers, “per manum preceptoris vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore fuerit, ibidem,” may help to explain the difficulty. For if it be allowed here that preceptor and ballivus are synonymous words, then the brother who took on him that office resided in the house of the Templars at Sudington, a preceptory; where he was their preceptor, superintended their affairs, received their money, and, as in the instance there mentioned, paid from their chamber, "camera" as directed; so that, according to this explanation, a preceptor was no other than a steward, and a preceptorium was his residence. I am well aware that, according to strict Latin, the vel should have been seu or sive, and the order of the words "preceptoris nostri, vel ballivi, qui”—et "ibidem" should have been ibi; ibidem necessarily having reference to two or more persons; but it will hardly be thought fair to apply the niceties of classic rules to the Latinity of the thirteenth century, the writers of which seem to have aimed at nothing farther than to render themselves intelligible.
There is another remark that we have made, which, I think, corroborates what has been advanced; and that is, that Richard Carpenter, preceptor of Sudington, at the time of the transactions between the Templars and Selborne Priory, did always sign last as a witness in the three deeds; he calls himself frater, it is true, among many other brothers, but subscribes with a kind of deference, as if, for the time being, his office rendered him an inferior in the community.*
* In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald’s Hospital in the city of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, pp. 227, 228, of his collections for the history of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and preceptoria signify the mastership of the said hospital: ad preceptorium sive magisterium presentavit
